If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)
by Anath Tsurugi
Summary: "Heh, you are strong, Guardian...but we will break you." What does it take to shatter the faith of the most devoted Guardian of them all? When the Temple of the Kyber falls, Chirrut and Baze are put to the ultimate test. After all, it's well known that Baze Malbus has only one weakness.
1. You Raise Me Up

(A/N) All righty, so this was originally begun for a prompt over on the kink meme, but then it really just started to take on a life of its own and we seem to be winding up with a much longer story than I'd first planned for. The initial request was that Baze and Chirrut be detained by a group of stormtroopers and the troopers proceed to gang rape Chirrut in front of Baze in order to get information from him. While that's definitely in here, the story surrounding it has gotten much denser, so we'll see what you think of it.

Warnings: Rape.

 **If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)**

 _Chapter 1: You Raise Me Up  
_

Baze Malbus gave a low groan as the warm water trickled over his face, carrying away a layer of grime and sweat from the day's training. Dipping his cupped hands into the bathing pool, he quickly splashed more water onto his heated skin. It didn't take him long to get stripped out of the upper portion of his robes, eager to wash away more of the grit.

Once he'd sponged away most of the dirt from his arms and chest, he was considering stripping completely and slipping into the pool for a little swim, but thankfully he noticed the glint of a familiar pair of eyes from one of the alcoves _before_ deciding to take the plunge.

"Do you _often_ hide down here to watch the other initiates bathe?" he asked in a mock serious tone, making a point of not looking at his friend's hiding place. "I'm not sure how I feel about this. Perhaps I should report you to the masters."

"You never would," Chirrut Imwe said as he tumbled from the alcove, offering up a mischievous smirk as he crawled across the stone floor of the underground cavern. "Besides…you _know_ you like it."

"Do I know that?" Baze pushed back, glancing at his fellow initiate out of the corner of his eye, a teasing smirk of his own beginning to turn up the corners of his mouth almost against his will. "After all, _you_ know what a jealous man I can be."

"For no reason at all, really," the slighter man returned, chuckling as he settled himself at Baze's side, back facing the pool so he could properly look him in the eyes. "As if I would ever look at anyone else."

"Wouldn't you?" Baze found himself deflecting, unable to keep his gaze from sliding away from Chirrut's blue eyes. He didn't know how the nineteen-year-old did it, but that gaze somehow managed to be both playful and intense at the same time. More than this, his eyes were the most beautiful Baze had ever seen. In a world full of brown eyes, blue eyes that glittered like two chips of azurite were a true rarity. Chirrut Imwe really could cast those beautiful eyes on anyone he chose. Why he kept choosing to cast them on

Baze was a mystery the older initiate hadn't yet managed to solve.

Chirrut shook his head. "It would be a waste of my time. Everyone else is so boring."

"Unless you've put nightcrawlers in their pallets, of course," Baze couldn't help pointing out.

"Of course," Chirrut said matter-of-factly. " _Everyone_ is interesting then."

"Damn your eyes, Chirrut Imwe. How the masters haven't thrown you out yet is beyond me," he chuckled.

"Because they enjoy my pranks, whether or not they want to admit it. _Someone's_ got to keep things lively around here. Otherwise we may as well be living in the catacombs," Chirrut said, reaching out to paw at the sash of Baze's robes, beginning to fiddle with the fabric.

"True enough," Baze granted, not sure if he trusted his training partner to be meddling with his clothing. "So why _did_ you come down here? I can't imagine it was to bathe. You've hardly got any dirt on you," he pointed out. Chirrut had been doling out punishment all day in the training arena, even to Baze himself. Despite being the largest of the initiates in size, even he could barely keep up with his lithe and wily partner's fighting style.

"Perhaps I really did just want to see you. You ever think of that, little monkey lizard?" he teased, though there was still something sincere in his gaze.

"For that, you could have asked," Baze said, capturing Chirrut's wayward hand in his own, but rather than look him in the eye, he just looked at their joined hands, not sure he wanted to know what he might see in those eyes. "When it comes to me…nothing is hidden from you."

"This I know," Chirrut said softly, gripping his hand a little tighter and tugging on it, prompting Baze to look up at him. The shorter man was still plainly amused about something, but Baze found himself latching onto that same grain of sincerity. "But you can still be so guarded around people."

"Are you people?" Baze asked, raising Chirrut's hand to his lips and brushing a kiss along his knuckles. "Are you anything _like_ people?"

Chirrut didn't respond to this. He just shivered pleasantly as Baze continued to kiss his hand. Splaying the younger initiate's fingers with his own, he pressed a slow kiss to each fingertip. Then he moved down and pressed an even more lingering kiss to the palm of his hand.

Chirrut's eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he allowed himself to feel the small flashes of lightning the intimate contact sent dancing along each of his nerves, moving straight to the core of him until they'd ignited something warm and wanting deep in his belly. Only when he opened his eyes and caught the spark of mischief in Baze's warm brown ones did he realize the snare he'd allowed himself to be maneuvered into. The taller man tightened his grip on his hand before effortlessly flipping him into the pool.

Baze laughed when Chirrut came up sputtering, struggling to brush his long hair from his eyes. There was something indignant in his expression as he wiped the water from his face, but mostly he was amused – proud and amused that Baze had actually taken the opportunity to pull the trick.

"You have learned well, my young apprentice," he said as he began to work his way out of the sodden upper layers of his robes, coming back to the side of the pool once he'd managed to disentangle himself, leaving his wiry but well-muscled chest on display. "Perhaps someone _will_ be able to take my place if the Guardians ever decide to cast me out."

"Never could," Baze said, looking Chirrut up and down for several moments, just watching the rivulets of water trickle down his smooth skin. " _Nobody_ can take your place. There is only one person so annoying among all the stars of all the galaxies. Only _one_ …Chirrut Imwe."

The younger initiate looked to him at this, trying to discern something. Baze didn't imagine it would've been all that hard. To Chirrut, he was an open datapad – always had been, ever since their earliest days at the temple – but now, there was confusion in those blue eyes, uncertainty in his normally confident gaze.

"Why do you always bathe alone?" Chirrut finally asked him, reaching out a hand to trace his well-defined bicep. "It's not as if you have any reason to be shy."

"It's not about being shy. Anyone in the galaxy could see me without my clothes on for all I care. But I will not permit them to see me naked. That is a right only one has. Only _one,_ " he repeated, meeting his partner's gaze directly. For several long moments, they remained like that, silently staring at each other across a distance that was both astronomical and infinitesimal. Chirrut was the one to finally cross that gulf when he leaned in to press his lips against Baze's. Another groan escaped the older initiate as the kiss began to deepen.

On a conscious level, Baze was aware they'd been doing this for about a year now, testing the boundaries of their friendship with tender kisses and stolen moments, but sometimes it felt like they'd always been like this, circling around each other and playing at intimacy. But this…this was different somehow. Some fundamental change was happening right before his eyes and directly beneath his fingertips, but he could make neither heads nor tails of it. He just knew he wanted to be closer to Chirrut, and he could see that same desire reflected in his partner's eyes when he pulled away from him for a gulp of air. Chirrut, however, was still Chirrut, and that desire was suddenly fanned with a fresh look of mischief just before the slighter male seized his hips and pulled him into the water with him.

Chirrut laughed as they flailed about in the pool for several moments, but then he fell quiet when Baze managed to still himself, pulling his smaller body against his own. They rested their foreheads together and Baze could feel the smile stretching across Chirrut's lips as his breath ghosted across his own.

"Catch me if you can," the smaller man whispered breathlessly before slipping out of his grip, already several strokes away before Baze even realized what was happening.

"You want to play, little fish? Fine. We'll play," he growled before paddling after him.

Still partly bogged down by the weight of their waterlogged clothing, they both knew Baze wouldn't be hard pressed to catch up with Chirrut. The younger might have been quicker in a fight, but he couldn't hope to match Baze for sheer strength. When he was finally slowed by that weight, it didn't take long for Baze to pin him, trapping him against the carved stone steps that led down into the bathing pool.

"Caught you," Baze said with a pleased smirk, holding himself low in the water while he held Chirrut pinned.

"So you have," his partner said, returning the smirk before dropping a kiss on the top of his head. "Perhaps you ought to have a prize."

"What more can you give me?" Baze asked, only partly teasing when he rested his head against Chirrut's chest, the beat of the other man's heart settling in his bones. "To have your gaze is prize enough."

"I can give you…myself…Baze," he said softly.

Baze inhaled sharply at his partner's words, but he still managed to hear the way the other man's heartbeat sped up when he spoke them. On looking back up into those striking blue eyes once more, he found something he didn't think he'd ever seen in them. Fear. Fear that he'd misread, that he would be rejected, mocked – that they would lose whatever this was blossoming between them.

"Chirrut…" he returned just as softly – reverently. "Do you…are you…" he tried several times, reaching a trembling hand up out of the water to touch Chirrut's cheek.

"Yes…to all of the above…Baze Malbus," he answered with a relieved smile, turning his head to the side to press a loving kiss to the palm of Baze's hand, as Baze had done earlier. "I want to know you… _every_ _part_ of you," he whispered against his skin before pressing a second kiss to his wrist. "And I want you to know me. I would give you all of myself."

"And I would give you nothing less in return," Baze responded before leaning in to claim Chirrut's mouth with his own. The kiss lasted for several moments before he felt the younger initiate reaching for the sash that held up the rest of his robes. He shivered in pleasure, trailing his kisses down onto Chirrut's neck as the slighter man fumbled clumsily with the sash. Chirrut drew several shuddering breaths as Baze nibbled greedily at his collarbone.

Baze felt it the moment the heavy fabric came loose, leaving the wraps and the pants to drift freely in the water. His own heartbeat sped up a little when Chirrut reached inside and he may have bit down a little harder than he'd meant to at the juncture of the smaller man's neck and shoulder when he felt those searching fingers brush against his heated flesh. If Chirrut's strangled gasp was any indication, though, he certainly had no objection to the tiny bite.

"They might- hng…notice that- tomorrow," Chirrut grunted out with a small laugh.

"Let them," Baze growled back, beginning to trail his kisses down onto Chirrut's chest, kissing between words. "Most of them…already think…we're fucking…anyway."

"It's not- _ah!_ " Chirrut cried out suddenly when Baze kissed his nipple. Immediately, his hands were out of Baze's pants and up at his head, fingers tangling in his long hair in an attempt to hold him there. "Oh…s- stars. R- right there," he pleaded.

Baze grinned up at him briefly before putting his focus on Chirrut's sensitive nipples, taking several minutes to suck at them, swirling his tongue first around one, then the other. By the time he managed to continue his trail downward, the shorter man seemed to have half-melted against the submerged steps, and he could very clearly feel Chirrut's prick poking up through the layers of his clothing. Once he'd reached the waterline, he began to make his own fumbling attempt at undoing his partner's sash, and much as he enjoyed Chirrut's reactions to his mouth and hands, his squirming was not helping matters. He was about an inch from just tearing the sash when Chirrut lowered his hands back beneath the water, resting them lightly on his.

"Calm down. I'm not going anywhere. We've got all night. They won't care about a few marks, but it might bother them if you damage the ceremonial clothing," he pointed out with a lopsided smile. Baze rolled his eyes before shifting his hands upward to grip Chirrut's.

"But you don't think they'll mind us getting them a little bit…soiled?" he asked as he lifted himself a little ways out of the water.

"Well…we _are_ bathing. Who would know?" Chirrut said, winking before leaning in to kiss Baze again, and as they kissed, they managed to work the sash loose together.

They lingered over the kiss for several moments before Baze began to shift their positions in the water. Keeping ahold of Chirrut, he rolled them so that _he_ was the one sitting on the steps while Chirrut sat astride him.

"That's a lot of control you're giving me," Chirrut noted while he leaned in to nuzzle Baze's neck, dropping several kisses on the underside of his jaw.

"I trust you," he returned, lightly tracing his hands along Chirrut's sides, rubbing circles in the wet skin with his thumbs before working his way back down to the younger initiate's hips.

Chirrut sighed in pleasure when Baze slipped a hand beneath the cloth. Baze took a few moments to get his fingers wrapped around Chirrut's cock, but when he finally managed to get in a good squeeze, the smaller man gave a loud, ungainly cry, his arms tightening around Baze.

"U- ungh…d- do that again," Chirrut pleaded with him. Baze was only too happy to comply, stroking and squeezing at the younger man as his own hips began to jerk up against him almost involuntarily. At this rate, he knew he wasn't going to last much longer.

Chirrut gave that same impression as his body began to rock against Baze's, cock thrusting into the delicious friction created by his hand. It didn't take long for his movements to become so rough, it just wasn't possible for Baze to keep hold of him with just one hand. So he removed his hand from Chirrut's pants and gripped at his hips with both hands, holding them together as they moved frantically against each other.

Baze was hardly aware of their separate bodies anymore. His world had narrowed to the places where their skin touched, to the excited sound of Chirrut's breathing and the insistent way the smaller man's hands moved up his back, coming to tangle in his hair the same way their bodies were tangled together.

"B- Ba…" Chirrut groaned desperately, unable to get even the single syllable of his name all the way out.

"Come- come on…Chi- so…fu-" Baze grunted, no more able to get out a coherent thought than his partner. Instead, he settled for sucking a harsh kiss into Chirrut's shoulder, holding him all the more fiercely against his body as Chirrut rocked even faster against him.

Suddenly, Chirrut went stiff in his arms, head falling back as his spine arced in pleasure. His mouth fell open, but no sound came out. He just hung there in his moment of climax, body seized in an instant of perfect bliss. Baze could have gone on looking at that perfect beauty forever, but that his own orgasm soon had a hold of him.

In contrast to the grunts and rough noises he'd been making so far, the sound that was torn from him as his seed pulsed from his body was more of a whimper. He was helpless to do anything but reveal all of his vulnerabilities to the man in his arms, and for once, Chirrut seemed to have nothing to say. He simply hung there in the moment with him, just feeling.

Neither of them knew how long they remained like that, cradling each other close in the water. Baze was hardly aware of his own body or the debauched state it was in. All he knew was Chirrut – his partner, his friend, his brother…his lover. His entire reality consisted of this scrawny little ass, filling his arms and holding him. With his head resting against Chirrut's chest, he could breathe in the sound of his heartbeat, and with Chirrut resting his own head against his, he could hear the gentle sound of the other initiate's breathing.

This time, Baze was the one to break their small moment of perfect union when he raised his head to capture Chirrut's lips in a tremulous kiss. When they pulled back from each other, Baze found that he couldn't quite identify the look in Chirrut's eyes. There were the aftershocks of pleasure, certainly, the faint traces of a smile…but there was also uncertainty, like he wasn't sure if he _should_ feel joy at what they'd done.

Chirrut was always so certain. Baze found that he couldn't stand the thought of being a source of uncertainty for him. Maybe…if he took some of the pressure off…

"I love you," he said without thinking, before anything more diplomatic could fill the spaces of his fear. And though there was no doubt in his heart that it was true, there just might have been a better time for this.

Chirrut didn't seem to think so, though. When he saw Baze's eyes widen with the fear of his own boldness, his uncertainty melted away and he started to laugh, loud and clear.

"Not what you meant to say, I gather?" he asked, poking at Baze's sides several times in an effort to get at his more ticklish spots. Baze just growled gleefully before wrestling his partner for control of his hands. Ultimately he ended up with Chirrut's back pressed against his chest, the younger's arms pinned across his own chest, trapped in Baze's strong hold.

"Does it matter…if I meant to say it or not?" Baze asked somewhat petulantly. "It's the truth."

"I know," Chirrut said softly, rubbing his cheek against one of Baze's hands before craning his neck to grin over his shoulder. "So I suppose one of us had to say it first."

Even though it was pretty obvious what that meant, Baze still couldn't deny the warm, fluttering sensation in his heart, and damn if it didn't make him feel angry and elated all at once, because _Chirrut loved him!_ But he was also just one year away from becoming a fully-fledged temple guardian and he was _damn well_ going to act like it, dammit!

"You're overthinking it, aren't you," Chirrut teased. "I was expecting a bit more of a reaction than that."

"Well, my apologies for not getting the city to throw a parade. It was a bit short notice," he jibed back.

"Really, Baze, I'm disappointed. I expect you to be ready to throw me a parade at all times," Chirrut chided.

"Shut it, Xino'ai," Baze reprimanded before rolling to the side and dunking them both under the water.

They were at play like that most of the night, and though it didn't take much for them to wash away the evidence of their activities from their clothing, it was hardly the last time they would be getting dirty.

XxX

The years passed by on their little world, as years were often wont to do. The two young men rose to become Guardians, dedicated to the temple and to each other. But where Baze and Chirrut grew closer together, the rest of the galaxy seemed to tear itself apart. War came to the Republic, bringing chaos to every world spinning. Though Jedha was not significant as far as its location went, its spiritual ties to the Jedi order made it a prime target for the Separatists. As such, the moon had always been under the protection of at least one clone garrison.

The Guardians had worked with the clones without complaint, but they'd all always found the notion of sharing the duties of guardianship with outsiders…disconcerting, to put it politely. Were it not for the clones' Jedi commanders, the Guardians of the Whills likely would have protested their presence a little more harshly.

Combat in the Jedha System had mostly lessened over the last few months, so a younger commander had been assigned to NiJedha. A Togruta female who had just attained the rank of Jedi Knight – Kana Torran, and knight though she was, she still wasn't completely familiar with the customs of the people she'd come to serve.

"Chirrut?" she asked him one night when they and the clones were out on patrol.

"Yes?"

"I don't mean to pry, but…that tattoo on your chest, I noticed you and Baze both have one."

"How observant of you, Master Jedi," Chirrut teased.

Kana laughed mildly at the jibe, but she didn't allow it to deter her. "I'm trying to say I'm not familiar with the symbol. I don't recall it from the teachings of the Whills."

"You wouldn't. It is not part of the lore. It is in the Jedhan script. It is called the Mark of the Xino'ai, and among our brothers, only Baze and I bear it," the younger Guardian answered proudly.

"And why is that?"

 _If she doesn't mean to pry, why is she asking at all?_ Baze found himself wondering as he watched the exchange from the back of the group, guarding their flank. He was dedicated to the teachings of the temple, of course, but these days he really found himself wondering why the galaxy was so enamored of these Jedi.

But before Chirrut could launch into his grand tale of their Marks, Baze happened to catch the tail end of a communiqué one of the troopers had received.

"-ecute Order 66."

"It will be done, My Lord."

Then, as one, the clone troopers raised their blasters and aimed them at Kana and Chirrut.

"Chirru-"

Before the warning was even halfway out of his mouth, one of the troopers turned and fired at him. He felt the heat of the plasma bolt pass just over his head as he ducked, drawing his own sidearm to return fire.

Kana and Chirrut turned almost at the same moment. Kana drew her lightsaber quickly enough to block the first volley of blaster fire, giving Chirrut enough time to sweep in with his quarterstaff, knocking down the first two troopers.

The fact that they'd served with these men for months was completely forgotten. The clones had fired on Chirrut and that was unforgivable in Baze's eyes. He would kill them all!

Thoughts of the betrayal were far from Chirrut's mind, though. His only thought was to protect Kana, whom their fire was clearly meant for. Lashing out fiercely with his staff, he managed to subdue quite a few of the clones. But the tide began to shift when one of them suddenly stepped out of his reach, turning to fire on the force of nature that was attacking from the squad's rear. Baze was already dealing with so many of them; he didn't notice one more clone aiming for his head.

"NOO!" Chirrut screamed, reacting without thinking. His staff forgotten, he went at the trooper with his bare hands, grabbing ahold of one arm just in time to redirect the clone's fire. Unfortunately, his own face was much too close to the blaster when it fired.

Chirrut was never really certain what the last thing he saw was. Logically, it would have been the clone's standard issue blaster and the bolt of superheated plasma as it seared across his eyes and stole his sight forever. But until his dying day, he could almost swear that he'd looked back at Baze one last time, had seen him look up at the sound of his cry, and had seen the fear in those warm brown eyes. It wasn't possible…was it? There was no way he could have been looking at Baze at the same time he was redirecting the trooper's fire. Whatever the case might have been, he would hold that memory close to him. In the days when he would begin to forget what it had meant to _see_ something, he would hold that last look into Baze's eyes close to his heart like he was holding his last breath.

But Chirrut Imwe didn't know any of this in the moment of his blinding. All he knew was pain – white, hot, burning pain. And despite his years of physical conditioning, there was only one thing he could do in response to such agony.

He screamed.

Baze's attention was immediately drawn by the sound of Chirrut's cry. Like Chirrut, he could never be completely certain that he saw the actual moment, but what he _definitely_ saw was Chirrut falling to his knees beside a clone, screaming in agony.

"CHIRRUT!" he screamed, forgetting everything else as he pounded across the dirt road, firing recklessly at the clone who'd hurt Chirrut. The traitorous bastard went down in a hail of heavy blaster fire.

Baze crashed to his knees beside Chirrut as the younger Guardian collapsed, quickly catching him in his arms.

"Baze…Baze…" Chirrut whispered desperately.

"I'm here. I'm right here," he soothed him, looking up to shoot one last trooper before setting his blaster aside, taking Chirrut's hand in his now free one and gripping it tightly.

"Are you…all right?" Chirrut asked, weakly reaching a hand up to touch his face.

"Am I…of _course_ I'm all right, you _fool!_ What did you think you were doing?"

"Couldn't…let him _kill_ you…Xino'ai," he whispered before letting his burned eyes slide shut, drawing several shaky breaths. "K- Kana. Is Kana all right?"

Baze didn't have the heart to tell him that, no, she was not all right. He hadn't seen which of the troopers had fired the shot, but it mattered little now. Jedi Knight Kana Torran lay in the dust, her chest ripped open by blaster fire.

"Just rest. Rest easy, my love," he soothed, pressing a kiss to Chirrut's forehead just before he slipped into unconsciousness, no doubt brought on by the shock of his injuries. "I'll get you back to the temple. They'll help you. Just hold on."

XxX

The war may have been over for the rest of the galaxy, but the fighting did not stop on Jedha that night. It only grew worse. When Baze informed the other Guardians what had happened, they immediately rose up against the remaining clones, both for the murder of Kana and for the attempted murder of two of their own.

Baze was not part of the fight, though. He could hear the sounds of battle echoing throughout the Temple of the Kyber and he knew that the Holy City had gone chaotic with the fighting, but it all meant less than nothing to him. He was waiting for Chirrut to wake up.

The healer had explained everything to him – how badly the blaster bolt had damaged Chirrut's eyes, and how far removed they were from the medical advances of the core worlds. Nothing could be done to save Chirrut's eyes. He would never see again.

Baze sat anxiously beside Chirrut's cot in the temple infirmary, gripping his hand tightly in his as he waited.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me," he said quietly, repeating the mantra over and over again as he stroked Chirrut's knuckles with his thumb. He knew he didn't derive quite as much reassurance from the old words as Chirrut always had, but it was still nice to speak them – Chirrut's words. They kept his mind from settling too much on the one horrifying thought that swirled at the center of the madness.

 _This is_ _ **my fault.**_

If he'd been paying more attention, Chirrut wouldn't have needed to rush so recklessly into the fight. Baze would've gotten clear and Chirrut would've taken the clone out with his normal exacting precision and…he would still be all right.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

 _I did this._

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

 _My own failings caused this to happen…as surely as if I'd pulled the trigger myself._

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

Chirrut's eyes were the most beautiful thing under the Jedhan sun, in all the galaxy even, and they had been lost.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me," he whispered, gripping Chirrut's unresponsive hand a little tighter as several tears squeezed their way from his eyes.

Chirrut wouldn't blame him for this. That he knew, but it didn't mean he would ever stop feeling responsible for it. He could never let it happen again, something _this_ unfair. As a temple guardian, his highest measure of devotion was meant to be to the Whills, but he knew it was not. From the moment Chirrut had pressed his lips to his in the sacred pools beneath the temple all those years ago, he had known it never would be again. That devotion belonged to Chirrut, to his vow to him – the ink that marked his skin – but he had failed in the keeping of that vow, failed to protect the man he called husband. What could he do but rededicate himself? In the name of the Force and everything he'd ever believed in, he would not fail again. He would never allow Chirrut to come to this much harm.

"Baze?" Chirrut suddenly whispered, fingers weakly returning his grip.

"Hey. _Hey,_ " he said, voice getting louder as he scrambled out of his chair, falling to his knees beside the cot.

"Were you…actually _praying?_ " Chirrut asked him as his grip grew a little more firm.

"You're imagining things, little fool," Baze growled affectionately, the tenderness with which he stroked Chirrut's hand belying any harshness in his words.

"I must really be dying…for _you_ to start praying," the slighter Guardian attempted to joke, though even _his_ propensity for humor was just about exhausted in this moment.

"Don't say that," Baze warned, the growl immediately losing any sense of warmth. "Not ever."

"Baze, I…I can't see," he started quietly, the increasing strength of his grip the only indication of his fear. "Are there…bandages?"

"There are," Baze responded. "Jiyo, she- she did the best she could, but…the plasma bolt passed directly by your eyes. They were burned straight through."

Chirrut knew what that meant. Of course he did. Baze had heard the knowledge of it in his voice from the first, despite his attempts at feigning ignorance. Chirrut knew just how limited their medical facilities were – just what kind of sentence his injury was.

"So…I'm blind," he finally said aloud, his grip on Baze's hand becoming impossibly tight. But Baze bore the pain of it without complaint. It really was the least he could do at this point.

"Yes."

"But… _you're_ all right?" Chirrut asked slowly. "They didn't hurt you?"

Baze gave his partner a withering look, before remembering with a small clench of his heart that Chirrut could no longer see the expression. "I don't know that that's the point in any of this…my foolish Xino'ai."

"It's exactly the point, Baze. The only point there is," Chirrut said, carefully guiding the older Guardian's hand to his face and pressing it lovingly against his cheek. "This was worth it. If you are not dead…if you are still with me…if I am still able to kiss your lips and call you husband…then it is worth not being able to look into your eyes."

"I'm not sure I agree," Baze returned, though he certainly allowed himself to revel in the softness of the other man's cheek against his fingers. "I don't know that this stinking hide is worth the loss of those blue eyes."

"Agree to disagree," Chirrut fired back in his usual light tone, though there was clearly some effort behind it. "Though…I suppose all this quarterstaff work over the years hasn't been for nothing," he tried to joke.

"No. Suppose not," Baze murmured with a tired smile.

"She…didn't make it…did she. Kana," Chirrut said suddenly, his countenance becoming sober once more.

"No. The clones…they killed her. I couldn't stop it anymore than you could. They just…they turned on us."

"What- what's happening? The city…it's in chaos," Chirrut said, trying to make sense of the sounds echoing to the infirmary.

"I told the masters what happened. They intended to report the squad to the Jedi Council, but the entire garrison turned on us…something about being traitors to the Republic for questioning their orders. The fighting's been going on all night. I don't- know _what's_ happening anymore," Baze tried to explain without much success.

"Something… _something's_ happened," his husband said, gripping his hand once again. "I don't know what…but something's different. I feel that- somehow- _everything_ will change after tonight…not just for us, but for everyone."

Baze didn't want to think about things changing for everyone. That was beyond the scope of his ability to comprehend. It was difficult enough trying to comprehend how their own lives would change after tonight. He was too tired and too heartsick to even try. Instead, he just leaned down over Chirrut and pressed several light kisses to the bandages covering his eyes.

"You just rest, foolish husband. You need time to heal. The Republic will still be here when you wake."

As Baze pulled back, Chirrut lifted his head up to capture Baze's lips in a clumsy, bruising kiss, trying to convey in one motion how much he _didn't_ regret his actions. His words upon collapsing back to the cot, however, were somewhat less encouraging.

"Somehow…I'm not sure how true that is."

XxX

As it happened, Chirrut was proven right. The Republic was _not_ still there when he woke. Almost overnight, the reality they'd known unraveled. Even as their report of a clone uprising traveled to Coruscant, the bells for the newly ordained Galactic Empire were ringing out across the galaxy. And all the while, the tale of the traitorous Jedi was branded into the heart of every star.

Instead of receiving aid after the clone uprising, the city of NiJedha was sent only punishment for daring to impede the _Empire's_ soldiers in the fulfillment of their duty. The city itself was rewarded with Imperial occupation, while the new regime's wrath fell hardest upon the Guardians of the Whills and the Temple of the Kyber.

For their act of defiance, the Guardians were stripped of their rights as a religious order. More clone troops were sent against them to plunder their treasures and destroy their knowledge. Their order had protected the temple for uncounted millennia, but their form of combat was against those foolish few who would dare to breach the sanctity of the temple. Facing down the might of an entire army was different. It wasn't long before the Guardians of the Whills began to crumble beneath the sustained weight of the Imperial siege.

Baze Malbus fought more fiercely than all the rest, determined that his husband should have the time he needed to heal. His faith and resolve never burned brighter than in those dark hours and it saw many wavering Guardians through their own crises, but even so, they began to fall.

They fought until only a handful of them remained, struggling to smuggle the ancient lore of the Whills out of the temple. In their desperation, they were forced to join forces with the nascent rebel cell forming in the city, the scrappy little fighters helping them to remove the essence of their order from the besieged temple. It all came down to one final archive being cleared by the rebels while the Guardians kept watch over the temple boundaries – the sacred place that had always been their home, but that had now become a death trap. It had been a week since the Empire's last incursion, but rumor was swirling of one last massive attack. There was no telling when such an attack might happen, though, as the winter sandstorms had started up in earnest and movement was difficult.

Despite Baze's promptings, Chirrut hadn't left the temple when the rest of their injured brothers and sisters had been smuggled out of the city. Every time Baze tried to remind him he was still healing, he would fire back that it didn't matter how well his eyes healed; he was still never going to see again. He may as well start getting used to his new state of being.

Therefore, whenever Baze wasn't patrolling the walls, he was with Chirrut in one of the training rooms, helping him relearn each form. Today, though, Chirrut had decided to work with his lightbow. It was going about as well as one might expect a blind man firing plasma bolts at targets to go and Chirrut was getting more frustrated with each shot.

"Not bad," Baze commented after the latest volley. "At this rate, you'll end up singeing every surface in this room _except_ those targets."

"What would you have me do, Baze?" Chirrut growled, glaring ineffectually in his direction. "Sit by while the rest of you fight? I can't do that."

"Have? I'd _have_ you rest, little fool. Just because they can't truly get better doesn't mean you can't injure your eyes further without proper rest," Baze ground out.

Chirrut sighed in exasperation, firing off yet another fruitless shot before turning in Baze's direction again. "Would it help if I promise to sleep for a week when this is all over?"

"I'll hold you to that, though who's to say what sort of world will be left when this is over?" Baze wondered aloud as he moved closer to Chirrut.

"Any thoughts? On where to go when it _is_ over?" Chirrut asked him, briefly lowering the bow as Baze drew up beside him.

"I'd thought to accompany this last cache out to the Revna Outpost. It's far enough out these Imperials aren't likely to come looking. None of the others have been willing to journey quite so far, but this _is_ the largest store. It will need guarding, the same as all the others. Besides, I think it will be a good place for you to learn your feet again," he said, placing his hands on Chirrut's shoulders as the slighter man raised his bow yet again. Making sure to keep his hold light, he helped Chirrut aim and together they let the bolt fly. Chirrut grinned up at him at the sound of the bolt striking the heart of the target.

"What need do I have to relearn things when I have you?" he asked, and though he spoke with the same flippant tone as always, Baze could still hear the underlying tension in his voice – the desire to pretend that nothing was different.

Baze shook his head. "Chirrut, I don't know how it's managed to escape your notice, but you can't see anything. What do you plan to do when I'm not there?"

"Do you _plan_ to not be there, husband of mine?" Chirrut asked as he shook himself free of Baze's grip.

"We can plan for nothing in this new galaxy, my love," Baze said with a sigh. "I just don't want you to be helpless if I can't be there for you."

Chirrut exhaled a long, slow breath at his words, taking several moments to center himself. It was difficult to read his expression with the bandages still around his eyes, but Baze could still see the frustration in the bend of his shoulders, in the tense curve of his spine.

"It seems I must knock you off your high bantha yet again, Baze Malbus. Choose a target. Any target."

"What?"

"Choose a target. Go and stand beside it. I will prove my point."

"Chirrut-"

" _Now,_ Baze!" the blinded Guardian ordered harshly, jabbing a finger in the direction of the target line up, and despite his attempts at grinning, Baze could feel the anguish emit from him – the desperate _need_ to prove that he wasn't helpless yet.

"As my fool Xino'ai commands," Baze said with a roll of his eyes as he moved toward the target two from the left end of the line up. "So where do you plan to bury me when you don't make the shot?" he jibed, though he would never have wanted to joke about such a thing himself. He kept up the levity because he knew Chirrut needed him to.

"If I wanted to shoot you, Husband, I would do just that. It would be no accident. Even so, there would be no burial for you, no long sleep with the old masters," Chirrut began as he took aim with the lightbow. "You would burn, and I would carry your ashes with me until I became dust myself. You will _never_ get away from me…Xino'ai."

"So prove it," Baze challenged, throwing his arms wide to present a wider target – to bare his heart. "Prove that faith _right now._ " This wasn't a test for Baze, but for Chirrut. Baze _knew_ that Chirrut wouldn't shoot him. He had complete faith in that knowledge, but Chirrut had become uncertain. This was something the smaller man had to prove to him _self_.

For all they were aware of the passage of time, it could have been a minute or a year that the two of them stood like that – Baze with his arms held wide and Chirrut aiming with unsteady hands and heart. The roaring, shrieking sound of the storm outside hardly reached them here. The storm was only between the two of them. Though Baze knew Chirrut could no longer see the love and trust contained in his own eyes, he hoped that he could make his husband _feel_ them just by feeling them in his own heart. Chirrut had always had more of a connection with the Living Force than most of them. He _needed_ that connection now more than ever. Baze just didn't know of any other way to help him _grasp_ that conviction.

 _I love you. I trust you. My faith is with you. Now, more than ever, I am with you, Chirrut._

Baze saw the moment Chirrut cast away his doubt. He saw the tension ease from his body and watched his countenance become firm with resolve as he inhaled, letting the bolt fly on the exhale. Baze smiled, not even flinching when the shot struck true, the clear bell of the perfect hit resounding throughout the room.

Chirrut hardly took the time to properly retract the bow before running at Baze, flinging his arms around him like a giddy young initiate and pressing a sloppy kiss first to his eyes, then to his lips. Baze returned the embrace gleefully, holding Chirrut as tightly against his body as he was able.

"I felt it," the smaller Guardian whispered against the crook of his neck as they embraced. "Baze…I _really felt it._ "

"Good," Baze returned with a small laugh as he spun his husband around, "because I really don't think there's anything crazier I could have done to slap some sense into you."

"I will never doubt again," Chirrut said softly before pressing a tender kiss to Baze's lips. "Thank you…my love."

"Anything for you, little fool."

If either of them had known that, in its own way, this was a last moment for both of them, maybe they would have savored it a bit more. As it was, the moment was broken all too soon.

"Baze! Chirrut!" one of the younger Guardians, Asana Rook, called out to them as she entered the practice room. "The sensor's been tripped! They're coming!"

"What?" Baze demanded as he set Chirrut down. "What idiot would try to move through this storm? They couldn't see their own noses at the ends of their faces."

"Yes, because no one could _possibly_ get anything done if they couldn't _see,_ " Chirrut said in a singsong voice.

Baze sighed, smiling as he rolled his eyes. "That's going to get old fast. I can tell."

"I live to push your buttons, little monkey lizard."

"Not to interrupt your domestic bliss or anything, but we _are_ still about to come under attack," Asana reminded them, her expression some strange combination of worry and fond exasperation.

"Have they finished emptying the archive yet?" Baze asked, getting back to business like he and Chirrut _hadn't_ been flirting in the middle of a warzone.

"No. We'd thought to have more time. There are still two banks remaining to clear."

"Then we'll have to hold them off until it's done. Chirrut, can you cover their escape?" Baze asked him.

"Of course."

"All right. We'll hold the wall as long as we can," Baze said as he took Chirrut's hand, leading him back to the place where he'd left his staff lying. Once the shorter Guardian had the staff in hand, Baze drew him up for one last kiss.

"Don't die," Chirrut admonished him as they separated. "You do and I'll pull you back from the Force myself."

"I believe you could. I'll come back to you," Baze said, still looking back over his shoulder at Chirrut as Asana started to lead him away. The last sight he had of his husband was of Chirrut standing alone in the middle of the training room with a faint smile on his lips.

"I know you will."

XxX

(A/N) So of course we know what happens next chapter. Think you're prepared for it?


	2. Only You

(A/N) Okay, so this chapter is unapologetically graphic. I certainly won't be offended if anybody feels they can't handle this part.

 **If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)**

 _Chapter 2: Only You  
_

The Guardians of the Whills really were down to just a handful remaining, Baze found himself thinking as he surveyed the small line of temple guards standing sentinel on the wall.

For all the driving sand swirling through the air, it was near impossible to make out the aging buildings of the city below, but it _was_ possible to pick out the lights from the approaching Imperial force. That small advantage in sight lines was virtually the only advantage they had. The fact that the sand would be confusing their enemy's tracking and they would be firing blind would delay the Imperials a little, but there just weren't enough Guardians remaining for it to really make a difference. From this point on, each Guardian who fell was a mortal blow to the temple's defense.

None of the Guardians spoke as they waited for their enemies to draw closer. There was nothing _to_ say. This was it. Those of them who'd taken up the task of guarding the hidden caches were already gone. This would be the last stand of the Guardians of the Whills.

 _Chirrut, if I don't return…please forgive me. Just get yourself out._

As the de facto leader of this last contingent, it was Baze's job to take the first shot, and he held off for as long as he possibly could, waiting until he could actually see the faintest suggestions of figures emerging from the driving sand. His lightbow held at the ready, he waited until the first figures reached the base of the temple wall. Then he let loose a hail of fire, the other Guardians quickly following suit.

 _All right, you Imperial slugs. If you want our home, you're going to have to climb over my cold, dead body to take it._

As he lost himself in the ensuing barrage of fire, cover, and return fire, he began to lose track of everything else – the time, the count of the enemy, his compatriots, even his own injuries. He was so absorbed in the repeated motion of returning fire and not getting shot, he hardly noticed the blaster fire grazing by him and singeing his skin. He didn't really start to become aware again until the Guardian a few paces from his right was hit.

Baze didn't know how he heard the sound over the roar of the storm and the battle, but for some reason, the small, strangled sound of Tefferin's dying cry pierced his ears as clear as a bell. When he looked over to see the younger man tumble from the wall, he suddenly found his thoughts going at a mile a minute. How many of them had fallen? Who still remained? When he could pick out no other sources of lightbow fire, he was really starting to fear that he was the only one remaining – right up until a fresh volley of fire rained down from one of the higher battlements.

Taking cover, Baze looked up to see Chirrut standing on the wall, firing confidently out into the storm. There was no way to know if his shots were doing much damage, but that pale hope was really all they had to go on at this point. Baze had to resist the urge to cry out when a blaster bolt struck the stonework not a foot from his husband's perch.

 _Dammit, you moron! I just wanted to give you a little confidence boost. You weren't supposed to drag that cocky ass into the middle of a firefight!_

Chirrut's fresh attack was exactly what they needed, though. The last few Guardians left standing rallied, delivering a final volley worthy of their last battle. But that was also about the time the Imperial soldiers managed to get their heavy weaponry close enough to the walls to fire without interference from the storm. The first wave of sustained heavy fire was sent in Chirrut's direction. Baze managed to catch a single glimpse of his retreating figure before the shots struck his position.

"Damn you, Chirrut Imwe!" he near-screamed, desperate to be heard over the noise. "If you die, I'm going to _kill you!_ "

He couldn't know if his warning was received, though, as it didn't take the troops long to turn their fire on the lower wall. It wouldn't be long before there was no wall to stand on at all.

"FALL BACK!" Baze thundered to anyone who could still hear him. " _FALL BACK!_ "

He didn't look back to see the wall crumble as he made his retreat, but he could certainly hear it. Something painful clenched in his heart when only three other Guardians followed him back into the temple. Asana and Trance Kylor were relatively unhurt, but between them, they were carrying a severely injured Zeni Hava.

"Do we know if they finished emptying the archive?" Asana asked.

"I'd say we can take Chirrut's appearance as confirmation that they got safe away. Who's to say if they mean to send anyone back for us, but you need to get him out of here," he said, nodding down at Zeni.

"How can we? We'll never be able to move fast enough," Trance despaired.

"Then I'll draw them off," Baze said firmly. "We've been living on borrowed time these last weeks anyway. What's a little more?"

"What about Chirrut?" Asana pressed. "Is he-"

"He's alive, the stubborn fool. Whatever you do, don't let him come after me. I'll rejoin you when I can. Go!" he ordered, waving them off. Once they'd gone, it was just him, standing alone in the empty sanctums of a crumbling temple, waiting for his enemies to appear from beyond the disintegrating wall.

"Come find me, clone slime," he challenged under his breath, lightbow primed once more as he waited. What he received when the troopers finally began to appear, though, was far from what he'd expected.

The troops that stormed the temple did not wear the same armor he'd seen the clone troops wear. He felt sure he was still facing down clones, but for some reason they were outfitted in pure white armor. Faintly, he found himself wondering what the significance of that was, but he didn't allow himself to linger on it for too long. Instead, he fired on the troopers, drawing their attention and fleeing in the opposite direction of the other Guardians, leading the enemy further into the temple.

He picked up the sounds of their pursuit easily enough. Their voices alone told him they were not clones and he wasn't certain how to feel about that – that thinking individuals would actually _choose_ to align themselves with this new regime – but again, he did not allow himself to dwell on the thought for very long. He needed to keep his focus on evasion.

Normally, he would be able to keep five steps ahead of these troopers on his home ground, lead them on a chase through the temple, easily slip away, and leave them completely lost. But now he was injured, wounded and exhausted, and he was only just beginning to realize _how_ injured as he attempted to move through the ancient complex. He could barely keep ahead of his pursuers in his current state, and he certainly couldn't find the time to turn and fire on them without wasting precious time for forward movement. Injured as he was, his body seemed to inadvertently seek out a place of sanctuary.

When Baze finally collapsed to his knees, unable to go any further, he realized that he'd come to the pools. He supposed he should be impressed that he'd managed to get so far under the temple under his own power, but there was no time for self-congratulating. If he could just get to the water, he knew he'd be able to follow the pools and their channels to one of the other routes back to the surface. As he threw himself down the steps and into the water, he began to hear the clatter of armored footfalls just behind him. He took a deep breath and ducked out of sight, but before he'd gone even five strokes, he was surrounded by the sounds of splashing, troopers entering the water. He tried to swim faster, but gloved hands were soon seizing hold of his arms and legs, and no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't stop them dragging him back out of the water.

He was thrown harshly on the stone floor of the chamber. He was aware that his head had struck the surface almost impossibly hard, but for some reason, it wasn't the pain of it that registered in his mind. It was the sound – the sharp _crack_ his skull made as it impacted with the stone. Dazed as he was from the blow, there was little he could do to stop them tearing every last one of his weapons from his grasp and binding his hands.

"So what do we have here? The last Guardian of the Whills? Pathetic!" one of the troopers snapped as two of his comrades held Baze up for him to inspect. Baze glared at the soldier before spitting in his face. That earned him a backhand across his own face. "Your order is _nothing,_ Guardian. _You_ are nothing, nothing but _dogs_ of the treacherous Jedi!" the trooper snarled.

"Maybe…but it's still- better than being a _murderer_ for a dictator," he snarled right back.

" _Silence,_ dog!" the trooper growled. "You know nothing about the Empire. All you know is deceit."

" _I?_ " Baze repeated in shocked incomprehension. "I don't murder _children!_ "

"Children who were raised under the lies of the Jedi. We will stamp out every last trace of those traitorous creatures!" the trooper declared before holding Baze's lightbow up in front of him and proceeding to smash it into pieces. Baze had to hold back a cry of despair as he watched the weapon he'd spent so many hours carefully and lovingly crafting destroyed before his eyes.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Baze breathed in and out several times, calling on his love for Chirrut, on his belief, _anything_ that would grant him the strength to endure this.

 _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

"Though…it seems there's not much left of you to stamp out," the trooper said with a satisfied chuckle. "Perhaps it would be better to compare you to a cockroach than a dog. The last remnants never do seem to want to die. Maybe you could still be of use to our Empire, cockroach."

Baze gave a bitter laugh at this, offering up a mad sneer. "Just kill me now, slug. I will _never_ help you. There is _nothing_ in this galaxy that could ever make me help you."

"We will see. We know you dogs have been allying with insurgents in the city. Perhaps in exchange for a prison sentence instead of an execution order…you might be persuaded to tell us where those insurgents are hiding," the trooper suggested.

Baze laughed as hard as he could in the trooper's face for that one. "Slug! You really don't get it at all. You know absolutely nothing about our order if you think I could be bought so cheaply!"

"Then I suppose we'll just have to do this the hard way," the trooper said before driving a harsh blow into Baze's gut. "Where are they?!"

" _Burn,_ scum!" Baze spat back, this time receiving a blow to the jaw.

"Tell us where they're hiding!"

"Die!"

"Don't play this game with me, Guardian," the trooper snarled, seizing a fistful of Baze's hair and forcing his head harshly backward. "We could do this all night and I'd love every _second_ of it, but some of us have better things to do with our time. Now _talk,_ Force slime!"

"Imperial slug," Baze bit out, glaring up at his captor as best he could, "you can beat me until NiJedha turns to dust around us. I will give you _nothing._ "

"If you…oh?" the trooper's tone suddenly changed as he released Baze's hair, hand traveling down the Guardian's body, to one of the patches where his robes had been burned away – where the Mark of Xino'ai had been laid bare. The trooper rubbed his gloved fingers over the tattoo in interest. "And what is this?"

"Filth! _Don't touch it!_ " Baze howled, struggling in vain against the troopers that held him. They could torture him as much as they wanted, inflict any amount of physical pain on him and he could endure it, but with one single touch to that part of his body that was so sacred to him, he suddenly felt horribly violated.

"So you've got a lover somewhere, have you?" the trooper mocked, running uncaring fingers repeatedly over the lines and swirls of the ancient symbol. "Who'd have thought? So desperate to ape the Jedi, you'd think the Whills wouldn't allow this sort of thing. What was it? A forbidden romance? A secret love affair?"

"You insult him," Baze hissed in anger, realizing even as he was speaking that he'd given too much away. If he gave anything more, they might be able to identify Chirrut.

"Him? Your _Xino'ai?_ " the trooper returned mockingly, proving that he knew exactly what the mark was. "Where is he?"

 _Say nothing more. He's only trying to anger you. Chirrut is safe. They can't hurt him. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

"Maybe we ought to search the city records. Find out who conducted your ceremony. It can't be that hard to find this him."

 _He's safe. They can't get to him. Even if you die, you will still be together. They can't destroy what you really are. You are one. You are Xino'ai._

"We will find him. We'll peel the flesh from his bones while you watch."

 _We are one with the Force. The Force is with us._

"We will _destroy_ him. Unless you tell us where to find your rebel friends, we will kill him, as slowly as we possibly can. Burn him alive, cut his fingers off, break his neck, put his eyes out. Whatever it takes to make you _talk_."

"A little late for that," he growled before he could prevent the angry words from escaping, hating himself even more for giving even that much away.

" _Baze!_ " Chirrut's voice suddenly pierced his ears, firing twin bolts of relief and horror into his heart. When he looked in the direction of the voice, he saw Chirrut approaching them with nothing but his staff in hand.

"No," Baze whispered in agony. "No, no, _no._ I _told_ you not to follow. Get out of here! _Go!_ "

"Never," Chirrut said softly as he walked slowly toward them.

"Blind?" the trooper muttered uncomprehendingly, but Baze saw his posture change the moment the light went on in his head. "Oh. I _see._ "

"Chirrut, go. _Please._ Just get out of here. _Go,_ " Baze begged him, but Chirrut just kept moving forward.

"You don't know me very well if you think that after all these years I could just leave you to your own foolishness," Chirrut said, swinging his staff in ever widening circles, playing up the blind card probably more than he needed to. Baze couldn't even bring himself to snark back at this point.

"Grab him," the trooper ordered, apparently in a position to do so. Two troopers moved in to apprehend Chirrut, but almost faster than the eye could track, the two men were on the ground.

"Perhaps we had best begin again," Chirrut chided gently while holding his staff in a threatening pose. "Let him go right now, or it might just go the worse for you."

"This is ridiculous. Teke, Kay, pin him," the lead trooper ordered. The two soldiers went at Chirrut and quickly met the same fate.

"Are you kidding me? He's a blind priest! How hard can it be to take down one blind man?"

Chirrut offered up what could only be described as a shit-eating grin before proceeding to drop several more of the soldiers. Baze felt some sense of satisfaction to see it, but the troopers did overpower Chirrut eventually, as he'd known they would in the end. The blind Guardian had been able to accomplish amazing things at a distance, but he was, in fact, still learning his new world of darkness. He could only handle so many opponents at once.

Chirrut was driven to his knees and bound not far from Baze. When he was finally subdued, the lead trooper moved to pick up his fallen quarterstaff, easily breaking the length of wood over his knee. Chirrut couldn't completely help flinching at the sound of the staff snapping and Baze felt something in his chest clench painfully at the sight.

With his weapon disposed of, the lead trooper approached Chirrut with a little more confidence. His first act was to tear the bandages from Chirrut's still healing eyes, exposing them to the dank air of the chamber. Then he ripped aside Chirrut's robe to reveal the mark on his chest, the twin to Baze's own.

"Here we are. Just what I thought. The other Mark of Xino'ai."

Blind though he was, Chirrut's eyes still widened in shock on hearing the words from the trooper's mouth. Baze knew he was thinking exactly what he had before. How did this man know?

"So are you going to tell us what these magic marks are, Niner?" one of Chirrut's captors asked their leader – Niner.

"This tattoo they both have is called the Mark of the Xino'ai. In the old Jedhan, it means the Mark of the Beloved. Only those who are bound in marriage may wear it," Niner explained.

"So…these two are married, then?" one of the troopers confirmed.

"Right," the leader returned, and even though he was still wearing a helmet, Baze could just _see_ the leer he wore underneath it. "So we'll just have to see how far that bond goes. I don't suppose there's much point to torturing _you,_ dog, since our blind friend here won't be able to see it. Him, on the other hand," Niner started, grabbing a handful of Chirrut's long hair and yanking his head back, as he'd done with Baze. Then he turned to look at the older Guardian. "Can you imagine what we could do to him?"

"You _pig!_ " Baze snarled, struggling against the troopers that held him to no avail, dazed as he still was from the earlier blow and bleeding from his other wounds. "You vile, evil, degenerate _swine!_ I swear, if you harm him-"

"What? What will you do?" Niner demanded, running a challenging thumb along the side of Chirrut's face. Chirrut tried to turn his head, as if he meant to bite that thumb, but Niner kept a firm hold of his hair.

"I will _kill you,_ " Baze promised him. "I swear it…if it takes the last breath in my body. It doesn't matter where you go. There will be no place you can hide, no crevice deep enough I can't find you."

Niner just laughed at his futile struggles, shaking his head before removing his helmet. Baze subconsciously noted everything he could about the man's appearance, but the thing that stuck with him the most in that moment was the intense amber color of the trooper's eyes as he leered at him.

"We'll see. Just for that threat, though, we really _are_ going to test how far this bond will stretch before it breaks. So you can _know_ , for the rest of your life, that what follows is _your fault,_ " Niner said in a sinister hiss, practically vibrating with malicious intent as he removed his gloves.

"What do you mean?" Baze asked, really starting to be afraid for the first time since the siege had begun. What were they going to do?

"I mean we're going to violate this bond of yours. Every single one of us," he said, his meaning quite clear when he traced his fingers over Chirrut's tattoo. Baze felt his heart plummet when he saw Chirrut's sightless eyes bulge in fear. But what made him truly sick to his stomach was when he felt one of the troopers holding him nudge his fellow soldier in excitement. They were actually going to-

"Don't!" he choked out desperately. "Don't do this. You _can't!_ It's-"

"It's a means to an end."

"If you want to kill me, just kill me. _Please_ don't do this," Baze found himself begging – actually _begging._ This couldn't happen. It _wouldn't._

"I seem to recall you saying that we'd _have_ to kill you first. That _nothing_ we could do would make you divulge what we need. Well, we'll see how well you keep your vow, because _that's_ the only thing that will stop this from happening. The location of your rebel friends…or your beloved. Which means more to you?"

It was a question that was no question at all. Chirrut was more to him than anything, more than life itself. He had sworn to protect him…but…to give information to these _creatures_ of the Empire…to aid them in any way…was unthinkable.

"No," Chirrut's voice suddenly cut through Baze's thoughts, desperate, but resolved. Baze looked up to see him pull away from Niner's touch. "You will not- use me for this. I won't _let you!_ "

Before Niner could react one way or the other, Chirrut had kicked the legs out from under one of the troopers holding him, using his sideward motion to drive his shoulder hard into the other trooper. But by the time he'd managed to leap to his feet, Niner had delivered another harsh blow to the side of Baze's head, pulling an unwitting grunt of pain from his throat. Chirrut froze upon hearing the sound.

"Don't try it, Guardian," Niner warned him, pulling one of Baze's vibro-shivs and holding it right next to Baze's left eye. "You can run if you want, try to fight, but you should know that if you resist, your beloved will be just as blind as you."

"Baze," Chirrut whispered, something in his voice breaking.

"Chirrut…just run. Please…leave me. _Leave me,_ " Baze begged him, seeing in his husband's expression how seriously he was considering fighting.

"Fine," Niner sniped. "Have it your own way." Then he sliced the vibrating blade into Baze's cheek.

Baze couldn't stop the scream of pain that came as the shiv split his skin. He'd tried to steel himself for it, but it was just about impossible not to scream when someone stuck a knife in you. Niner didn't cut very far or very deep, but it was deep enough.

" _STOP!_ " Chirrut cried out in desperation, moving exactly two steps in their direction before sinking to his knees in defeat, head bowed low in submission. "I surrender. Don't…don't hurt him anymore."

"Chirrut…no," Baze called out weakly, unable to do anything more than hang limply in the grip of the two troopers, the vision in his left eye slowly going red from the spatters of his own blood. "Go…go…"

"Never," Chirrut said again, slowly raising his head as if to look at Baze. "I'm sorry. I cannot leave you like this."

"Please…please…" he begged, actually feeling _tears_ start to gather in his eyes, strangling his voice.

"No. I…I _know_ \- that I can defeat them…but…then you will be hurt…and I cannot- _bear_ that," Chirrut explained, suddenly seeming smaller than Baze had ever perceived him, just kneeling there on the floor. He felt certain that if his husband's injured eyes could actually produce tears right now, he would be crying. And even though there was no visible sign of tears, it still broke something inside of Baze to see his bright, powerful partner so diminished.

"That's better," Niner admonished before spitting in the dust at Chirrut's knees. "Take him."

At least two of the troopers recovered quickly enough to carry out their commander's order. Chirrut was quickly dragged to one of the chamber walls, the binders restraining his wrists just as quickly secured to one of the rails that lined the wall. Then the troopers began to roughly strip him of his robes. Chirrut remained composed throughout, facing the wall with only the barest hint of a tremor in his naked shoulders.

"No," Baze whispered, but when Niner began to walk toward Chirrut, his voice quickly rose to a shout. " _NO!_ I- I'll give you what you want. Just don't do this. Don't hurt him."

"No," Chirrut's voice picked up before any of the troopers could say anything. His voice was quiet in the silence of the chamber, but to Baze, the condemning sound of it was deafening.

"Chirrut-"

" _No,_ " he said again with even more resolve than before. "I understand…how hard this is…but if you give in to them, I will never forgive you. This _cannot_ be for nothing. It is not just our allies you protect," Chirrut said, reminding him of the legacy that was still their responsibility. "You can never- give them up…not even for _me_."

"Chirrut…how will I live?" he demanded in Jedhan, speaking as if it were just them, alone in this place that was sacred to them in so many ways. "How can I live with myself…knowing I could have stopped this?"

"The same as I will…Xino'ai – one breath after the other, knowing that we did our duty, that we kept faith," Chirrut returned in their native tongue, trying to comfort him as best he could.

"Faith?" Baze spat bitterly. "Faith brought us _here!_ What faith requires me to sacrifice _you_ on its altar?"

" _Baze,_ " Chirrut pleaded sharply, only then revealing just how close he was to breaking, "this is _my choice._ I _need_ you right now. I _need_ you to have faith in me. If you can trust nothing else…trust _us._ No matter what they do, they _cannot_ destroy what we really are," he said, echoing Baze's earlier thoughts, and in that moment the older Guardian knew that none of this was about him. Their enemies were trying to _make_ it about him by using Chirrut against him, turning their victim into an instrument of torment for the purpose of their true goal, and even though Baze understood just how well it would work, he also knew that the only victory they could hope for was not to give in.

"I…I am with you…Chirrut Imwe. My faith is with _you_ ," Baze choked out, even as his faith in everything else drifted apart like dust on the wind.

"So what is your answer, Guardians?" Niner challenged, looking impatiently between the two of them.

Baze remained silent, knowing that if he allowed his mouth to open even slightly, he would give in to his weakness. It was only Chirrut's surety that was holding him together at this point and only they knew how tenuous that was right now. The only response the trooper received was Chirrut's solemnly whispered, "Do it."

Chirrut, for his part, had something a little more solid to have faith in in that moment. He knew that once Zeni was safe away, Asana and Trance would be coming back for them with rebel reinforcements. If he could just hold out long enough, then they would both make it out of this. Unfortunately, faith was a difficult thing to keep hold of when one could literally feel the dark intent of one's captors.

Chirrut had always been able to feel the presence of the Force and it had been a comfort and a trial to him, but prior to losing his sight, he had never truly relied on it, never given himself fully to its currents. That moment hadn't come until just a few short hours ago, when Baze Malbus had so willingly stepped out in front of his lightbow.

The demand had been made in anger and fear, helplessness and frustration – the terror that he really _had_ become useless and that without his sight, all of his training meant less than nothing. In that moment, he knew he'd been on the verge of losing his faith completely. But Baze had been there for him. He'd willingly done something completely insane for no other reason than that Chirrut had _needed_ him to. Baze's faith in _him_ had been that strong, and in that moment, he'd felt the strength of his husband's love for him, had felt the power of the Living Force emit from him and flow between them. They had been surrounded by darkness, but between the two of them there was light. There would always be light. And in knowing that, Chirrut had felt all of his doubts vanish. He had let his shot fly with the guidance of the Force and he'd known that he would never again doubt that it was with them. But of course that certainty _would_ come at a time like this – when it would be tested as never before.

Chirrut had felt the dark intent of the stormtroopers as they'd marched on the temple and he could feel it now. Rape, after all, was its own sort of murder, and the Force moved just as darkly around such an intent. It was the murder of the soul, of hope and trust and the will to fight.

Chirrut knew he could endure this as well, but it was going to take everything he had. So, instead of allowing his thoughts to dwell on what was about to happen to him, he tried to cultivate a clinical, detached attitude toward it all. He had taken several of the troopers out already. Including Niner, there were six of them – six soldiers who remained in any kind of condition to defile him. Rather than focus on the fact that they were stripping him naked, he catalogued the way each piece of fabric felt as it slid from his skin. He could hear the troopers slowly stripping out of their armor, but rather than allow himself to think about what that meant, he simply counted the pieces of armor as they fell to the stone floor, clacking thinly against the ancient surface.

The next thing he became aware of was a pair of hands snaking around his waist, a figure still dressed in a full bodysuit slotting against his.

"The offer stands _firm_ for you, of course," Niner said to him, gripping his hips in bruisingly tight fingers as the commander ground briefly against him, clearly already excited for what was to come. "Just tell us what we want to know and this all stops."

"It never stops," Chirrut said to the wall, not even giving the stormtrooper the satisfaction of speaking directly to him. "So long as you go on using pain as a tool, this will _never stop._ I _will not_ give you what you seek."

"Heh, you are strong, Guardian," Niner murmured in his ear, quiet enough so that only he could hear, "but we will _break_ you."

Chirrut offered no response. He just stood where he was bound, waiting. Niner gave a quiet, inhuman growl before snapping the tie that held back his hair. Then the commander stepped back and Chirrut became aware of the sound of a cap being unscrewed from a bottle. This was soon followed by an acrid scent.

 _Blaster lubricant,_ Chirrut supplied for himself – the oil they used to maintain their weapons. He supposed he should be relieved at this small mercy, but he also knew that it wasn't being done for his sake. It was to make it easier for them. And as much as he _didn't_ want to make this easier for them, he was aware just what kind of damage they could do if they took him raw. So he did his best not to resist when the first oil-slicked finger began to probe at his entrance.

This first soldier was inexperienced. Chirrut could feel it in the uncertainty with which he gripped his hip and the hesitant way he moved his finger in and out of him. He did his best not to resist the intrusion, but there was only so much he could do to control his body's response. He couldn't completely stop himself from tightening up – from doing something, _anything_ , to protect himself. And all the while, the trooper just continued to jab that finger clumsily into his body.

"Come on, Twos. What's the hold up? Some of us are getting bored back here," one of the other troopers ground out.

"I- I've never done this before," the trooper huffed in embarrassment. "Shouldn't have made me go first."

"It's not hard, rookie," Niner's callous voice rejoined the conversation, but then he began to laugh. "Well… _that's_ not true. We can all see how much you want this Forceling. But you're overthinking this. Just stick it in."

Chirrut might have felt sorry for the boy, if this was really his first sexual experience, but that pity was quickly driven away by the anguish he could feel rolling off of Baze in waves – that he couldn't stop this…that Niner could joke so casually about it…that these _beasts_ could so unfeelingly violate what was so sacred to the two of them…

Chirrut tried to block out his husband's pain. He really did try, because Baze's agony made this all too real for him. It made it something that was happening _to_ him, not something that he could just observe from a distance. He struggled not to acknowledge that pain, but he didn't succeed. He wanted to hold it close to him, to soothe it in any way he could. But there was nothing he could do, and when the young trooper finally thrust his hard cock into him and he couldn't stop the small cry of pain that came, that tide of anguish just grew louder in the Force.

Twos whimpered in pleasure several times as he thrust clumsily into Chirrut. It took him no more than a minute to come, but for Chirrut, it was a minute of painful angles, harsh tearing, and clawing fingers. Some distant, rational part of his mind was aware of the brief span of time, but the part of him that was living through this felt as if it had been hours of the wild, painful burning. It really did take everything he had to remain on his feet when Twos' spent cock slid from his body, leaving trickles of fluid sliding down his thighs. The young trooper pressed a light kiss to his shoulder before backing away from him.

 _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

The next trooper to step up had clearly been waiting impatiently, as he wasted no time in shoving himself deep inside Chirrut. He managed not to cry out this time, just barely keeping his reaction to a sharp hiss of pain. Rather than just gripping his hips and thrusting, this soldier wrapped his arms around Chirrut, molding his body to the Guardian's, pressing them as close together as he possibly could.

"You like that, monk?" the trooper hissed in his ear. "Bet your husband's not this big."

"That- that's all you've got?" Chirrut couldn't quite stop himself from taunting. "My Baze is _much_ bigger."

Chirrut felt the stormtrooper's anger flare outward like a star going supernova, crackling and blazing as it burnt the fabric of the Living Force. He seized Chirrut's hair and slammed his head harshly against the chamber wall, grinding his face against the rock. Chirrut had to bite his lip to keep from crying out as his skin was scraped raw along the rough surface.

"So you like big cocks, do you, _little slut?_ Guess I'll just have to show you how good you've got it right now."

The trooper then proceeded to drive him against the wall, pounding into him with all the considerable force he possessed. And what the man didn't have in size, he made up for in stamina. Somehow that detached, unfailingly rational part of Chirrut's mind couldn't seem to help keeping track of the time, and the trooper continued his assault for a solid ten minutes, thrusting as violently into Chirrut's body as he was able. He continued to slam him against the wall as hard as he could, also causing Chirrut's wrists to scrape harshly against the binders that held them. Apparently not content with just the scrape marks, the soldier also littered his neck and shoulders with bruises and bites, marking him in any way he could.

The trooper grunted harshly when he finished, burying himself as deep inside Chirrut as he could possibly go. The soldier held him against the wall like that for several minutes, as if making sure his seed would soak itself into Chirrut's body, leave some part of his conquest within the Guardian…forever. By the time the soldier finally pulled out of him, Chirrut knew it was more than just semen dribbling down his thighs. By now, it was mingled with his blood.

"Try forgetting _that_ the next time your husband takes you," the trooper snarled in his ear before finally backing away from him, and Chirrut was disheartened to acknowledge that he could barely stand on his own. All he could do was lean heavily against the wall, drawing shaky breaths and struggling not to lose his feet completely.

 _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

"Good show, Sixer. _Damn_ good show," Niner said with a small smattering of applause. "All right, Tek. You're up next."

Chirrut felt the trooper in question move in behind him, felt the displacement of air and the heat of another body at his back, but for several minutes, there was no new contact, no hands on his body, nothing violating him in any way. What was happening?

It took the blinded Guardian a few moments to identify the sound he _did_ begin to hear. It was the sound of skin rubbing against skin, breath harsh as it panted from dry lips, muttered curses in a language he didn't know.

"What's the matter, Tek? Can't get it up if the whore's breathing?" Sixer mocked with an ugly laugh.

Strangely, this Tek had nothing to say to his compatriot's jibe. When his muttering switched to Basic, Chirrut began to understand that the trooper's anger was directed at _him._

"Damn…kriffing…piece of kriffing…temple trash," Tek growled, clearly struggling to get himself hard.

"As if your performance issues were somehow _my_ fault," Chirrut couldn't keep from antagonizing. All the comment did was earn him a hard backhand to the head.

"Piece of shit! Do you know how many of our guys you temple freaks killed?" Tek demanded.

"No. I have no idea," Chirrut returned firmly. "Do _you_ know how many of our brothers you killed? Our sisters? How many children dead in the siege? In the Purges?" he demanded quietly, not allowing his voice to rise, but still threading it through with as much accusation as he could manage.

" _We were just following orders!_ " Tek cried out. The cry was followed by a brief sound of scuffling before something large, cold, and metallic was shoved jarringly into Chirrut's body.

Chirrut couldn't stop the scream this time. It was too much. The strength of it leaving his throat forced his head back as the object was thrust into him over and over again. What was it? A blaster grip? He didn't know and he couldn't keep his focus away from the agony long enough to figure it out or to rein in his screams. It seemed his lungs were going to scream whether he willed it or not.

" _CHIRRUT!_ " Baze cried out in anguish, and that soul deep torment rushed to fill the spidery, splintering cracks of Chirrut's own hurt, making it all the worse. He was vaguely aware of the sound of his husband struggling against his captors, but he knew Baze was in no condition to fight.

 _Baze…my love…my Xino'ai…I am sorry. I don't know if I'm strong enough to bear this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

"I- I am…one with the Force," he cried out weakly between screams. "The Force…is with me."

Then, with one more painful thrust, Chirrut felt the spatter of the trooper's orgasm against his lower back, followed by the feeling of the sticky substance dribbling down over his backside.

"Some Force," Tek growled at him before delivering a blow to the side of his head. "We'll see who's one with you now."

Even before Tek had stepped away from him, Chirrut knew he couldn't stand anymore. He just collapsed to his knees, completely unable to support himself. The only things still holding him up were the binders fastening him to the wall.

"Anything to say, temple whore?" Niner's voice suddenly came from directly beside him. Chirrut couldn't help flinching away from his proximity, shocked that the stormtrooper commander had gotten so close without him noticing.

The Guardian shook his head several times. "Mm-mm. Mm-mm," was all he could manage to mumble.

"And you, dog?" the commander called back to Baze.

Baze didn't say anything, but Chirrut could feel the strength of the pain that gripped his heart, and it tore at something inside of him to be the source of that pain. At the very least, though, he was grateful that Baze didn't have to directly feel all the things _he_ was feeling.

 _I am with you, Baze…and you are with me._

"Fine. Twos, Sixer, hold the mutt so Seven and Kai can have their shot."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Chirrut heard the same scuffling sounds as before – the troopers changing positions, the two new ones shucking their armor, but then he heard something different.

"Give me that," one of the new troopers said.

"Ooh, Kai," Niner started with a low whistle. "Good idea."

And for some reason, Chirrut found this to be more frightening than anything that had come before it. He could sense the darkness in their intentions, certainly, but that told him nothing about what his latest rapist actually planned to do to him. Injured and weak as he was, he still couldn't help but struggle involuntarily against the binders.

"No," he whispered. "Please…no…" But his desperate plea was soon overshadowed by Baze's shouts.

"No! Don't! You can't! Stop! Just _stop this!_ "

"Is that surrender I hear?" Niner chimed, but Chirrut knew he couldn't allow that, no matter how much he was suffering. This _couldn't_ be for nothing.

"No," he whispered, knowing that his voice still carried to his husband. "You _cannot_ \- give in."

"Chirrut," Baze whispered just as quietly, though his voice still managed to pierce Chirrut's heart like a knife, "Don't ask me to endure this. I can't. I _cannot bear it._ "

"You must…Xino'ai," he tried to comfort Baze, despite his own fear. "You _must._ "

Baze fell silent once more, but Chirrut could still feel something in him dying.

 _Forgive me, Beloved. Please forgive me._

When neither of them said anything more, Chirrut heard the trooper called Kai approach him. He heard the hum of the vibro-shiv activating barely a second before the blade bit into his back.

He screamed, but not quite as loudly as the last time. His voice was quickly becoming hoarse with overuse. Really, he wasn't sure how much longer he'd have a voice to scream with. Unfortunately, Kai was able to prove him wrong when he began to carve his lines even deeper, cutting down through skin and muscle, even nicking bone in several places. The trooper's work was made even messier by Chirrut's involuntary thrashing. By the time Kai set aside the shiv and entered the Guardian, he was only half conscious to feel it.

 _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

Chirrut almost didn't notice when Kai finished, just became faintly aware of the absence of movement behind him and within him. But then it started again when someone released his binders from their place at the rail. Briefly, it occurred to him to try and get away, but that thought was laughable and he knew it. He couldn't escape now, even if he'd wanted to.

Someone gripped his shoulders and flipped his body. He gave a small cry of pain when his abused backside slammed sharply against the ground, sending a spike of agony up his spine. If he'd had enough presence of mind, he might've felt shame at the whimpers that fell from his mouth, but as it was, the whimpering was all he could manage as his wrists were raised and locked to the wall once more.

"I think I will have your mouth, temple rat," a new voice said to him. The other trooper – Seven. "After all, it's brought you _so_ much trouble already. Why not a little more?"

Chirrut struggled briefly to turn his head away, but Seven seized his jaw, holding it in an iron grip. He tried to keep his lips pressed tightly shut when the trooper shoved the already leaking head of his cock against them, but it didn't take him long to force entrance, thrusting past Chirrut's lips and down into his throat, to the point where he was near gagging.

"Remember what happens if you fight," Seven threatened as he held Chirrut in place. "So let's have a little enthusiasm from you, slut."

Unable to speak with his mouth filled, the only agreement Chirrut could give was the slight bobbing of his head, moving up and down the soldier's cock. Much as the thought of being complicit in this act sickened him, he'd reached a point where he just wanted it all to _stop_ , so he used a few of the breath and tongue techniques he typically used on Baze to try and get it over with faster.

"That's more like it," the trooper said with a pleased groan as he buried his fingers in Chirrut's hair and increased his pace. "Knew you could put that mouth to better use."

Even then, with almost no strength left and on the verge of shattering, Chirrut still had to resist the urge to bite the cock in his mouth. Fortunately, he didn't have to resist it for long, as his quick tongue soon had the trooper spilling down his throat. He did at least try to turn away from that indignity, but Seven held him fast, staying buried so far as to keep Chirrut's nose pressed against the thatch of curls at the base of his cock. When he finally allowed the Guardian to collapse, Chirrut was coughing violently from the abuse his throat had taken. He barely resisted the urge to throw up.

 _…one with the Force…Baze is with me…_ The wayward thoughts chased each other through his head.

Chirrut wasn't completely certain how long he lay like that, just hanging from the binders. Right up until Niner was kneeling beside him again, he'd completely forgotten the fact that he'd only been raped five times so far. There was still one more to go.

"So how are we holding up…Chirrut, was it?" the commander asked him. Chirrut flinched away from the voice – that voice that meant pain – curling in on himself involuntarily.

"Go…go away," he pleaded in a voice barely more than a whimper. "Leave me alone."

"No, Chirrut," Niner scolded, his voice strangely gentle, almost as if he were talking to a child. "You _know_ how this works. You _know_ how to make it stop. I'm giving you one more chance. Just tell me where your rebel friends are hiding…and I'll make sure that no one ever hurts you again."

"No," he cried softly, never more grateful in his entire life to be unable to shed tears.

"You think we've done our worst, don't you," the commander said with a pitying laugh. "I'm sorry to say you're wrong. This pain…do you feel this pain?" he asked quietly, trailing horrifyingly gentle fingers from Chirrut's belly up to his heart, tracing the lines of his Mark again, pressing into them.

"Don't…don't touch it," he pleaded fruitlessly, struggling weakly to escape Niner's touch.

"This is nothing, Chirrut. I can make you wish you were _dead._ And unless you give me what I need, I'm going to. I promise you. Please, Chirrut. Don't make me hurt you."

"Baze…" he whispered, calling out through the darkness that surrounded him, calling out to the last bit of light that remained to him.

"I'm here," his husband called back, and Chirrut could tell by the sound of his voice that he'd been crying.

"Don't…don't look," he begged. His one plea that might be honored. "I don't- want you to see this."

Baze said nothing in response, but Chirrut could feel his negative reply. To turn away from his suffering now would be nothing less than a sin in Baze's eyes – an unparalleled act of betrayal. Chirrut needn't have worried, though. Niner wasn't going to make it that easy for him.

"I don't think so, dog," the commander called back to Baze. "You _will watch this._ You _know_ what happens if you don't."

Niner wasted no time after that. He traced his fingers up to Chirrut's face, pulling him up into a kiss. The Guardian whimpered in disgust, fighting to pull away from the unwanted contact, but he didn't have enough strength. He'd had five other men inside of him in some capacity tonight and yet it wasn't until now that he felt _truly_ violated. When the commander had had enough of kissing his lips, he moved down to the Mark of the Xino'ai, running his tongue over the inked pattern and pressing several rough kisses to it.

"Please…stop…stop… _stop,_ " he pleaded over and over again, even though he knew it wouldn't help.

"This is precious to you, isn't it…this symbol carved into your heart," the stormtrooper said, his tone containing a strange sort of reverence.

"It…it is my life," he couldn't stop himself from answering.

"You love him very much…and he must love you. Do you remember the first time you kissed?"

Chirrut didn't answer, but there was no need for him to. The memory had already swum to the surface of his mind. He'd been seventeen – still a child, but old enough to believe that he knew something about the galaxy. A shared glance after one of those rare sparring matches where Baze had bested him – a spark of heat between them – a chase through the temple – and then a frightened, searching brush of lips beneath the stars. He knew that he would never forget the amazed, reverent look in Baze's dark eyes that night.

"Do you remember your first time?" Niner's voice drifted hypnotically through his mind.

Right here in this chamber – not five feet away on the steps of the pool. He'd been so awkward and unsure of himself, but so very much in love. He would've given Baze the stars if he'd asked for them. The first time Baze had called him by name…Xino'ai…

"And your wedding day?"

The whole temple had celebrated with them – their love a reflection of the gifts of the Force. A ceremony in the innermost of the kyber sanctuaries witnessed by the masters and their closest friends – a promise to share their forever. And the wedding night – making love in their shared room like they were young lovers all over again, each committing every inch of the other to memory…

"Baze…my love…"

"Yes. I can _see_ how much you love him."

It was that old callous undertone in the deceptively gentle voice that snapped Chirrut back to the present moment. In his pain and utter exhaustion, he'd allowed Niner to manipulate him – allowed the commander to guide him back through his happiest times so that the trooper could work him to full hardness without him even noticing. By the time he realized what was happening, he knew it was too late. His body was trembling, preparing to give everything it had.

"Poor, poor Chirrut," Niner half-crooned as he continued to work at the Guardian's full cock. "You've fought for such a long time, but now your skills won't save you. What will you do? Will you pray to your Force…even though you _know_ it won't answer?" the stormtrooper asked, voice dropping into a devastating hiss as he gave one last harsh _squeeze_ between the Guardian's legs.

At that moment, something inside of Chirrut Imwe _broke_ – shattered into a million pieces as his body gave over in total surrender.

" _NOOOO!_ " the defiled Guardian screamed in abject anguish as his body was seized by unwanted pleasure. Unable to block out Baze's horror and pain any longer, they flowed in through the cracks in his soul, overwhelming him and sending him into a state of shock. Chirrut wasn't even aware of it when Niner took his body. The stormtrooper's most devastating rape had already occurred – the assault on the blind Guardian's heart.

Baze was aware of it, though. He was aware of every moment that Chirrut lay as if dead in Niner's arms. For every minute that passed, Baze vowed it would take that many stabs with a vibro-shiv to carve out the trooper's heart. He didn't care if it took him the rest of his life. He was going to stand over Niner's dead body, no matter what it took.

Niner grunted in satisfaction when he finally finished in Chirrut. For several moments, he held the catatonic Guardian in his arms, caressing his skin and stroking his hair, for no other reason than to stir Baze's anger – and _damn_ if it wasn't working.

" _Get away from him!_ " Baze snarled when he really didn't think he could take it anymore.

"All right, but only because I have no other use for him. Really, I don't know why you'd even _want_ him back, _soiled_ as he is," the commander said coldly as he finally withdrew from Chirrut's body. Then he went to clean himself off with the scattered pieces of Chirrut's clothing, just like all the others had done. As he started to put his armor back on, he continued the conversation. "Though I guess this didn't exactly work out like I was planning. It seems…the only thing we have to threaten you with is his life."

Baze wasn't sure what he would've said to that, and thankfully he would never have to find out, because that was the moment Asana and Trance came blazing into the chamber leading a cadre of rebel guerillas. The troopers were immediately swept into the unexpected engagement.

With his captors distracted, Baze was easily able to work his way out of his binders. That was the only easy part, though. Crawling to Chirrut through the chaos of the fighting was next to impossible, but Baze did it anyway, mindless of his own injuries. As the rebels drew the battle away from the chamber, he undid Chirrut's bonds. Then he clumsily wrapped his husband's battered body in his own tattered robe.

He had no idea how he managed it, but Baze somehow got Chirrut into the pool, thinking to wash away some of the blood and semen clinging to him. He didn't attempt to scrub or anything of that nature. He just held Chirrut in the water, watching the grime come away in layers. After a few minutes of being in the water, Chirrut slowly seemed to come back to himself, but his first instinct was to try and flinch away from Baze's grasp.

"Please, no. No more! _I can't_ -"

"Chirrut, it's me," Baze soothed as best he could, cradling his husband tightly against his chest, urging him to calm. "It's me. It's Baze."

"Baze?" Chirrut whispered, the panic slowly starting to settle as he clung tightly to him.

"I'm here. I'm here. You're safe now. They won't hurt you anymore."

"Baze… _oh, Baze,_ " Chirrut cried out helplessly as he buried his face in Baze's thick chest.

It took Baze a few moments to identify the sounds Chirrut was making, but he did ultimately recognize them as tiny, strangled sobs. Just because his damaged eyes couldn't produce tears properly didn't mean he couldn't cry.

"I'm here. I'm here," he repeated over and over again as he held Chirrut close to him, just letting him cry. "I'll protect you. I promise. I _will protect you._ "

Baze didn't know how long they remained like that, just clinging together in the water while Chirrut cried, but the smaller Guardian did eventually cry himself into an exhausted sleep, and that was how Asana, Trance, and the others found them – just drifting there in the sullied waters of the sacred pool, clinging to each other as if for their lives.

XxX

Baze was amazed to find that Jedha's humble rebel cell had somehow managed to acquire a bacta tank. He imagined that theft from the Imperials was somehow involved and that lifted his spirits some, but he certainly wasn't going to ask questions – not when they were willing to share their limited medical supplies with Chirrut. And while Chirrut floated in the tank, suspended in the healing fluid, Baze sat on a roughly hewn bench nearby, keeping watch over him while the events of the last few hours replayed themselves in his head, his own injuries barely held together by plasma stitching and bacta patches.

They'd retrieved Chirrut's lightbow from where he'd stashed it, but Baze hadn't permitted them to recover the pieces of his own bow. The thought of even touching them, never mind rebuilding the weapon, angered him to the point of being sick to his stomach.

They'd made their escape from the Holy City under the cover of the storm. Upon arriving at their base of operations – a ruined outpost beneath the ancient Rakata Monastery – Baze learned that Zeni had died en route, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd been saddened by the deaths of the other Guardians, but now he just felt empty – empty like the ravaged halls of their home. All of the anger and pain he had left were for his husband.

But…Zeni's death also left Baze with the vague sense that everything he'd done – everything Chirrut had suffered – that it had all been for nothing. Chirrut would have said that it had been for the protection of the archives, but Baze didn't think he even cared about _that_ anymore. Zeni's death…all the others…Chirrut's suffering? What had _any_ of it been for? He didn't even know if he felt guilty for feeling relieved that the other Guardian's death had left the bacta tank free for Chirrut. Really…he didn't know what to feel about _anything_ anymore.

 _No. That's not true,_ he thought as he got to his feet, shuffling toward the tank in a much more quiet fashion than he usually moved. Gently, he rested a hand on the layer of glass that separated him from Chirrut.

If there was one thing he _knew_ he still felt, it was his love for his husband. His love and his hatred for the people who'd done this – for himself…for not being able to prevent this. Once again, Chirrut had been hurt, and again it was _his fault._ He hadn't been strong enough, quick enough, or clever enough to stop this from happening. His vow from the night the Republic fell seemed so hollow now – the promise of a child…empty as the air. What good was it making promises to something so malevolent that it _willed_ so much death…so much pain? And the Force…his faith in it…his own great strength…of what use were these things? What were they good for…if they could not protect Chirrut? What use was the Force to him if it could so easily turn its back on the center of his world?

It wasn't so much that he found himself not believing in the _existence_ of the Force. He knew it to be real. He just thought if it actually willed anything, that will was as changing as a toddler's, and something like _that_ could never be trusted. It could not keep the one thing in the galaxy he still cared about safe. So…it seemed he was done with the Force.

 _My faith is with_ _ **you**_ _,_ he thought again as he traced his hand along the glass, as if he could reach through and stroke Chirrut's hair. _Only you. Nothing else._

"The last cache is ready to depart for the outpost," a woman's voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts – Jerrin Saro, daughter of the slain Senator Undara Saro and recently appointed leader of the Jedha cell. "Had you planned to accompany it out? I'm sure you would be back before he wakes."

"I'm sure I would," Baze agreed without turning to look at her. "Except I don't plan on coming back from Revna. Chirrut and I are going to remain out there for the time being."

"Not- coming back?" the rebel leader repeated, her confusion quite plain. "But…the masters-"

"-are all dead," he interrupted bitterly. "They fell with the Temple of the Kyber."

"Yes. And the Guardians who remain will need a leader, someone to be accountable to in their exile."

"And you think that someone is me?" he asked in an incredulous tone.

"There's no one better. You protected the temple to the very last. The others will look to that as a symbol of hope…a sign that this isn't all for nothing."

"You're wrong," Baze growled low in his throat, the beginnings of true anger starting to boil in the pit of his stomach.

"Wrong? What exactly am I wrong about?"

"I didn't protect the temple. I protected _him,_ " he explained, gaze remaining unerringly fixed upon his love. "For all the good it did him…I protected _him._ "

"And? How is that devotion diminished in _any_ way? Please, Baze. Your brothers look to you still," she said as she drew closer.

"You don't understand. I'm not- not that man anymore," he fought to explain, the bitter ashes of guilt and broken faith layering at the back of his tongue as his hand curled into a fist against the glass.

"But how can you know that after one night?"

"Sometimes…one night is all it may take," he answered, knowing that he would relive what had happened beneath the temple for the rest of his life. Even if he lived to be as ancient as the grand master, some small part of this would still touch his soul, for what they had done to Chirrut, they had done to him as well. To force him to watch what they'd done to his husband was a rape all its own. Everything that Chirrut had not experienced through his lost sight had been burned behind Baze's eyelids to relive every night in his nightmares. He hadn't properly told the others what had happened, but he had no doubt they could guess from the state of Chirrut's body alone.

"I've heard it said…that Baze Malbus is the most devoted of all…that given time, you could've become a grand master. Why would you let this Empire take that away from you?" Jerrin demanded as she came up right beside him. "You've inspired so many, Baze. Stay. Help us. Fight _with us._ _Punish_ the _monsters_ that did this to your husband."

At first, Baze found his anger rising with the rebel leader's stirring words, actually found himself _wanting_ to join her cause and make the Imperials _suffer_ …but then he was struck by the image of Chirrut breaking – the memory of what Niner had demanded in exchange for not harming him – and something inside of him just _snapped._

" _No!_ " he snarled, violently yanking his hand away from the glass as he spun to face Jerrin. "It's too much! What has _my Xino'ai_ given up for _your cause?!_ Look what it's done to us. This war hasn't even begun, and already it's _twisted_ our love and turned it into shame. I _will not_ put him in that position again. We just- want to be left in peace," he finished abruptly, the anger draining out of him as fast as it had come on. Almost before he was aware of it, he found himself on his knees before the bacta tank, shoulders trembling with the effort of not breaking down completely.

"I- understand," Jerrin said quietly, though the shock in her voice was still plain to be heard. "We will ask nothing more of you…Guardian Malbus. You've given more than anyone could ask. You gave us our beginning. As soon as Guardian Imwe is well enough to travel, you will be granted safe passage."

Baze didn't watch the young rebel leader leave. He just remained where he knelt, gazing sadly up at his husband.

 _What did I do, Chirrut? Did I fail you again? I don't know. I don't know what's right anymore. How can I keep you safe? I'm sorry, my love…so sorry. I just…I don't know what to do._ _ **I don't know what to do.**_


	3. The Hope of Morning

**If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)  
**

 _Chapter 3: The Hope of Morning  
_

 ** _Chirrut…_**

 _He's running._

 _He feels each breath move in and out of his lungs, effortlessly moving oxygen through his body as he moves past Guardians and initiates alike, his bare feet pounding against the warm stone of the temple floor. There's a grin on his lips and the sweet taste of miru fruit in his mouth as he runs through the sun-dappled corridors, his pursuer not far behind._

 _"_ _ **Chirrut!**_ _" Baze's angry voice echoes off the ancient walls. The younger initiate hears how it draws chuckles from several of the Guardians as they run by. Never once breaking his stride, he glances over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of his best friend. The thirteen-year-old's tight braids are coming loose, his cheeks are flushed from the pursuit, and the lines of his face are screwed tight with anger, but his dark eyes are also alight with the thrill of the chase. Chirrut sings out a maddening taunt before sticking his tongue out at the other initiate, putting his focus forward once more._

 _"Damn your eyes, Chirrut! Get back here!"_

 _"Language, Initiate Malbus. This is a_ _ **holy**_ _place," he sings back before slipping a dripping, ripe piece of fruit from the bag he has tucked under his arm, taking a bite as he runs._

 _"I'll have that silver tongue of yours, too, when I catch you!"_

 _"For that, you must catch me, little monkey lizard," he teases back._

 _"Oh, I'll catch you, you little thief," Baze growls._

 _"No, you wo~on't!" he sings, catching sight of his goal just ahead – the archway that overlooks the groves. If he can just get that far, he's home free._

 _"Chirrut, don't you dare!" Baze's angry shout rings in his ear, not far off now. Baze knows that if Chirrut reaches the archway, he's lost._

 _And reach it Chirrut does. As he's done so many times before, he reaches the edge of the wall and springs off of it, launching himself into the open air. For a moment, he's suspended perfectly in the air, free of the bounds between land and sky with a joyful shout in his throat and sweetness in his mouth. But then the moment's over and he's reaching out to grab the branches of the tree outside the archway. Once he's properly balanced on the tree branch, he turns back to look at Baze, fuming on the stone edge._

 _"Now who's the monkey lizard?" the older boy bites out spitefully._

 _"It would appear to be me. I suppose you will just have to stay on the ground, baby bantha," the younger boy chortles, reaching effortlessly for another branch and swinging from it with one hand._

 _"We'll see," Baze growls. And then, with a look of determination, he takes several steps back from the edge, clearly steeling himself for something._

 _"Baze?" Chirrut starts uncertainly, not sure he likes where this is going._

 _His friend doesn't respond. He just gages the distance, takes a running start, and Baze – heavyset, firm-footed Baze, who has never made this jump in his life – is suddenly flying through the air._

 _Chirrut's not sure how he knows Baze isn't going to make it, but he drops the bag of fruit without thought or hesitation, reaching out with his now free hand to grab Baze's. The other boy's weight just about wrenches his arm from its socket, but he somehow manages to hold on._

 _Sweat begins to bead on his skin as he struggles to keep his grip on Baze's hand. He can feel the tree branch groaning, creaking,_ _ **wanting**_ _to snap under their combined weight, but it doesn't give. He's able to swing himself just enough to allow Baze to grab onto another branch, swinging to a new one for himself just before the first branch breaks. Chirrut breathes in and out several times, laughing in relief as his gaze shifts from the broken branch to his friend._

 _"Looks as if you get to keep the title, monkey lizard."_

 _"Yes. Because_ _ **that's**_ _the reason I near killed myself trying to follow you," Baze snaps. There's still anger and frustration in his eyes, but there's also relief and a kind of exhilaration._

 _"Reason enough, of course, but what reason do_ _ **you**_ _give, tree-climbing bantha?" Chirrut teases as he starts to swing around Baze's head. Baze just smirks up at him as he holds up the bag he's somehow managed to catch during his fall._

 _"Because you seemed to think there was somewhere you could go I couldn't follow," he says as he slips a piece of the sweet red miru fruit from the bag, grin widening as he takes a bite of it. The red juice that dribbles from his mouth and down his neck reminds Chirrut unsettlingly of blood._

 _"Baze-"_

 _Then there's a cut on his cheek, just below his left eye, and there really_ _ **is**_ _blood pouring down his face._

 _"_ _ **Baze!**_ _"_

 _Baze's scream echoes in his ears as the tree disintegrates from beneath him._

 _ **Chirrut…**_

 _Baze has him pinned against the wall of an alcove, wrists pinned loosely above his head while the older initiate worships Chirrut's neck with his mouth. When Baze's tongue glides along the pulse point, he feels his heart race even faster._

 _"Oh…_ _ **oh,**_ _" he moans sharply at the sensation. "Yes…that…"_

 _Baze grunts animalistically against him, releasing Chirrut's wrists so as to run his hands down along his sides, holding him as close as he possibly can. Chirrut lets his own hands fall to tangle in Baze's braids, each perfectly kempt strand becoming more disheveled with every passing moment._

 _"Chirrut…Chirrut…" Baze breathes reverently against his skin, as if kneeling in meditation in one of the kyber sanctuaries. Raising his hands once more, the eighteen-year-old begins to push Chirrut's robes aside, baring more of his skin to be kissed._

 _"Baze…my Baze…" he whispers back, panting sharply as his partner kisses a vivid bruise into the hollow just above his collarbone. "Put your hands on me," he pleads._

 _But then Baze's fingers are digging into his skin and his mouth is hot and demanding against his…burning…penetrating…it's all too much._

 _"W- wait…no…I can't-"_

 _Baze looks at him with pain in his eyes. "How can I ever look at you again?"_

 _"No…no…" he cries out, feeling tears stream down his face as he shakes his head. He reaches out for his love, but Baze twists into smoke and fades away. Everything falls into darkness and he's left alone, holding nothing but empty air. His hands begin to shake as he pulls them against his chest, grasping at shadows. "Baze…please…please come back. Don't go._ _ **Please don't go.**_ _"_

 _"You can_ _ **never**_ _get him back," an ugly voice slithers through the darkness. "The gulf between you is too wide now. But you_ _ **chose**_ _this…Chirrut Imwe. Tell me, for what purpose did you give him up? This pain…this_ _ **weakness**_ _…was this worth giving up the only person you've ever loved?"_

 _A voice…a pair of hands in the unending dark…poison to his heart…_

 _Niner._

 _"I didn't- want this," he sobs as he curls in on himself, the tears flowing freely down his face._

 _"Didn't you understand the choice you were making? The altar you were sacrificing your love on? This is proof of your love for Baze. Cruel proof, isn't it."_

 _"Stop," he begs, curling even further in on himself in an effort to escape. "Just_ _ **stop!**_ _Leave me alone. You can't_ _ **do this!**_ _"_

 _"Oh, Chirrut…it's already done."_

 _ **Chirrut…this isn't real…**_

 _The Mark of the Xino'ai appears from the darkness, its familiar shape glowing a faint white color. Then it solidifies into something real and Chirrut's reaching out to trace the freshly inked tattoo on Baze's chest, the skin still puffy and red around the new lines._

 _"It's beautiful," he whispers reverently in the gentle silence of their room. "You are so beautiful…my Baze."_

 _"Xino'ai," Baze whispers back with endless devotion in his eyes. "My love…" Then he's leaning forward to press a kiss to their vow. But even as his lips meet the Mark, Chirrut can feel something inside of him begin to twist in grief and agony._

 _ **Chirrut…you're dreaming. You can't see. You know you'll never see these things again – never see the man you love look at you with eyes so full of love. What more have you lost?**_

 _All at once, the simple touch becomes too much. It burns through him like fire, and though he struggles desperately to hold onto Baze, his husband disappears in flames. Baze is gone, and no matter where he turns, he cannot escape. Uncaring hands hold him down, tear into him, rip open his heart and take what they want, leaving him bleeding faith and love from a broken soul._

 _"Not even the thing you hold most dear is sacred anymore," Niner hisses in his ear, fingers clawing into the Mark, trying to destroy it. "What did this love mean to you…if it could be violated so easily? What are_ _ **you**_ _…that you could be destroyed so_ _ **effortlessly?**_ _"_

 _And just like that, Chirrut knows that a part of him will always be trapped here – always in pain, always dying, always breaking…always_ _ **screaming.**_

 _"_ _ **NOOOO!**_ _"_

"Please…Baze…" he cries out helplessly, hands reaching out futilely in the dark, "help me… _please help me!_ "

"I'm here," Baze's rough, gentle voice suddenly sounds in his ear, and just like that, a hand is grasping his. "I'm right here."

"Don't go. _Don't go. Don't leave me!_ " he pleads, gripping at that hand with everything he is.

"It's going to be all right," Baze soothes as he cradles him close. "I'm going to protect you… _always._ I promise. Please- don't cry."

Then, unable to distinguish real from imagined, Chirrut finally sank into a dreamless stillness, at rest, even if only for a moment.

XxX

Chirrut didn't know where he was when he woke. Moreover, he found he couldn't completely remember what had happened.

"Baze?" he called out quietly, then louder. " _Baze?_ "

"Chirrut?" Baze's harried, relieved voice came to him from the other side of the room. Then he heard the sound of Baze rushing over to him. "How…how are you feeling?" he asked, laying the back of his hand against Chirrut's forehead.

"Little…hazy," he croaked out, shaking his head and dislodging Baze's hand.

"Suppose you would be. You've been asleep for the better part of a week," Baze said.

"A _week?_ " Chirrut repeated uncomprehendingly. "Baze, where…where are we?"

"We're in Revna," he answered, fumbling with something at the side of the bed. "Here. Drink."

"Revna?" he asked as Baze pressed a cup into his hands. Chirrut drained the water from the cup in one go, feeling a mild sense of relief as the cool liquid moved past his parched throat.

"Yes. Do you…remember what happened?" Baze asked, and the way his voice caught on the words unlocked the floodgate in Chirrut's memory.

 _"Heh, you are strong, Guardian…but we will_ _ **break**_ _you."_

 _"Please…stop…stop…_ _ **stop**_ _…"_

 _"Will you pray to your Force…even though you_ _ **know**_ _it won't answer?"_

 _"_ _ **NOOOO!**_ _"_

"I- remember," he said with a small flinch, allowing Baze to take the cup from him. Not wanting to think about the damage to his own body, he asked, "Are _you_ all right? What did they do to you?"

" _Me?_ Am _I_ all right? Are you _serious?_ " Baze asked incredulously.

"These things will heal," Chirrut insisted in a tone that was much more firm than anything he truly felt, continuing to ignore the state of his own body. "But when he…Niner…when he went after you with the vibro-shiv-"

"It will heal," Baze returned as he sat with him on the bed. There was still something pained and angered in the older Guardian's voice, but the hand that reached to take Chirrut's was infinitely gentle in guiding his hand to his husband's face.

Being careful to keep his touch light, Chirrut took stock of the bandages that covered Baze's face, feeling just how much of the skin was covered.

"So he didn't…he did not…" Chirrut struggled to get the words out, thumb tracing anxiously over the small stretch of stubbled cheek he could feel below the bandage.

"No. The eye's still there. He just cut around it."

"That's good," Chirrut said, running his fingers briefly over the rest of his husband's face, more for reassurance than anything else. "After all, we cannot _both_ be blind. It is crime enough I am never to behold that chiseled face again, but I absolutely _insist_ upon _you_ looking at _me_ every day."

"Chirrut-"

"I know that tone, husband of mine. You are absolutely _not_ going to find the downside in the fact that you can still see," Chirrut interrupted, his voice beginning to rise in pitch without his consent. "You are not going to sully the _one good thing_ that came out of this."

"It's not-"

" _They didn't hurt you!_ " Chirrut suddenly found himself shouting, near hysterical as he reached out to seize Baze's robes in shaking fists. As he buried his face in Baze's chest, he could feel the tears starting to pour down his cheeks. "P- please, Xino- ai…just- just tell me…you are not hurt," he begged as he cried. Selfishly, he knew, he needed what he'd been through to _mean something._ This pain…the destruction of the temple…his _own_ defilement – it _couldn't_ be for nothing, and in this moment, all he had to cleave to was that he'd protected Baze in some small way.

"I am not hurt," Baze lied for him as he held him, voice painfully gruff. Chirrut could taste the lie of it, but he appreciated it no less. Baze made no sound as he wept, but Chirrut could feel the hitch in his breathing, could feel how each teardrop wet his hair – he could taste his husband's lies and love in each salty tear that was shed, and he said nothing of it. He just clung to Baze as they cried together, soaking each other's robes and hair in mourning for what might have been.

Chirrut didn't know how long they stayed like that, helping each other relearn how to breathe, but when he was finally able to rest a little easier in Baze's arms, he took a moment to run his fingers along the damp patches he'd cried into the other man's clothing.

"I…I can cry," he noted quietly.

"What?"

"I…couldn't…before. My eyes were still too damaged. Has it- really only been a week since it happened?" he asked.

"Yes…only a week," Baze answered. "I don't know how, but the rebel cell managed to get ahold of a bacta tank. There was time enough for one overnight stay in the tank to heal most of your injuries, but we couldn't stick around long enough for further treatment. We had to part ways."

"What? Why?"

"The Imperials were closing in. I don't know how they located the cell, but Jerrin needed to break camp and find a new hiding place. I'd already decided we weren't going to remain with them. I had to get you out here. So I did. You weren't yet well enough, but we _had_ to get out of there. You've been unconscious since then…with a very bad fever. It only just broke this morning. I had been considering…contacting Jerrin again," Baze recounted.

Chirrut sighed faintly when his husband cradled him a little more firmly against his beating heart. Briefly, he received a very clear picture from Baze's thoughts – a nightmare image of himself lying on a bed, tangled in the bedding and sweating profusely as he tossed and turned, whimpering helplessly, trapped in some terrifying fever dream. Chirrut gasped sharply as the moment was burned into his heart – not the sight, but the tangled snarl of emotion that Baze carried with it. Anguish, helplessness, and guilt.

"I'm sorry," he whispered against Baze's chest.

" _Sorry?_ " Baze spat out, his grip on Chirrut briefly tightening. "What are you _sorry_ for?"

"To leave you alone like that…after everything that had happened. I know it wasn't- my fault…but still…I am sorry for what your heart has been through," he answered, reaching up a hand to tangle his fingers in the larger man's unkempt braids, not properly tended to since even before the siege had begun. Chirrut gave a small, pained laugh as he began to feel just how much grime was clinging to his husband's hair. "This won't do. Baze…may I…will you let me fix your hair?"

Baze stiffened briefly at the question. Perhaps the notion was jarring – something so normal after everything that had happened – but Chirrut ultimately felt the up and down motion of his nod.

"I…if- if it's what you want…of course."

It took some time, but Baze brought him what he needed – a basin of warm water, a bottle of oil, a comb, and a small pitcher of water to rinse with. Chirrut heard the small clinks and bumps of Baze carefully arranging everything on the table beside the small bed before the older Guardian settled himself in front of Chirrut. He took his time in undoing each of the braids, carefully running his fingers through the grimy tangles.

"What about the other three? Where are they?" Chirrut found himself asking, also finding comfort in the familiar motions of running his water and oil slicked fingers through Baze's hair, gradually washing out the dirt and blood.

"Zeni…didn't last the night," Baze answered quietly, shuddering minutely beneath Chirrut's fingers. "They couldn't get him to the monastery in time. He's gone."

Chirrut's hands briefly stilled in their actions when he heard the words, a surge of pity welling up in his heart. He knew how Asana and Zeni had looked at each other. It had been the way he and Baze had looked at each other in their initiate days. So he grieved for the brother and friend who had been lost, and for what might have been.

"And…Asana?" he made himself ask, coaxing his hands to continue in their task.

"Not well. I don't know. Last I knew, she'd planned to join Onna…help him find places for the younger initiates. I didn't- see her before the raid started," Baze said, tension stiffening his spine for a moment before Chirrut managed to work it loose, scrubbing away the last of the grime. "The only one I know for certain is Trance. He took up with Jerrin. He's going to fight with this rebellion of theirs."

"Well…if he thinks it best," Chirrut said, breathing in and out in time with each brushstroke through his husband's clean, wet hair. "I am almost…surprised you elected to break with them."

"You weren't well…certainly in no condition to stay in a warzone," Baze said, reaching a hand back to rest on his knee. "Besides…I already said it, didn't I? Revna's the best place for you."

"Of course. There is still the legacy of our brethren to protect."

"That isn't why I brought you here," Baze returned, an angry growl creeping in around the edges of his words. "I brought you here to keep you away from those Imperial _dogs_."

"Baze," he started, struggling to keep his fingers from trembling, "are we not still Guardians of the Whills? We made a vow to guard the Temple of the Kyber and protect the teachings of the Whills."

"The temple has fallen. The Guardians are either dead or scattered. What is there left to protect?" Baze demanded.

"The Force- lives in all things. It is not contingent upon us or upon the temple," Chirrut struggled to explain, feeling something ugly and harsh closing around his throat, trying to choke off his air. He was beginning to understand just what it was he'd felt die in his beloved's heart that night.

"Is that why it was so easy for the Force to cast us aside?" Baze hissed, fingers digging sharply into Chirrut's knee. "How it- could allow you…to be…"

"That is not the way of it," Chirrut whispered, hands falling to grip at the hand on his knee. "It's not about- casting and allowing. All is…as the Force wills it," he offered up lamely, knowing he wasn't explaining himself well – and Baze's response confirmed it.

" _I don't believe that!_ " Baze snarled in anger, his voice on the verge of breaking as he jerked his hand away from Chirrut's. But then that enraged tone dropped into a desperate whisper. "I _can't_."

"Baze…our vow…" Chirrut tried again, reaching out desperately through the encroaching darkness, trying to touch his Xino'ai.

"My vow is to _you,_ not to the _Force,_ " Baze spat the word out derisively as he stood from the bed. "I _renounce_ it. Do you hear me?"

Chirrut's breath caught in his throat at this, and for several moments, he couldn't figure out how to make it resume. Throughout this entire ordeal, he had been able to remain strong because there'd never been any doubt in his heart that Baze was with him. But now…Baze, too? Was he going to lose Baze to this? The Empire had taken everything else – his home, his purpose, even his faith in his own body, his great strength. Had they also taken away the one thing his heart still beat for? Because Chirrut knew, as surely as he knew the power of the Force, that if Baze turned from him now, he would not survive.

"Was I… _wrong_ …before?" Chirrut rasped out, barely managing to pull the air into his lungs as his searching hands fell soundlessly to the blankets.

"Wrong about what?" Baze demanded harshly, the direction of his voice telling Chirrut he was still facing away from the bed.

"When it- began…I said they could not destroy what we really are. Have they? Is even _this_ …broken?" he asked, trembling fingers reaching up to touch the Mark that would forever cover his heart. "Our love…am I such a broken thing that even _that's_ not worth holding onto? Have I lost my Baze…my beloved little monkey lizard?"

Chirrut heard Baze's sharp intake of breath when the other man turned back to face him, the quiet displacement of air sounding more like a sandstorm gale to his ears. He didn't want to imagine what his husband saw in that moment. A weak, helpless creature? A broken, useless man? A shadow of the Guardian he'd once been? He didn't know and he didn't _want_ to know. Whatever self-demeaning thoughts had taken root in his mind, though, were quickly dispelled when Baze swept back toward him, pulling him fiercely into his arms and holding him close once more.

"Never," Baze whispered in his ear, echoing his own declaration from that night. " _Never,_ Chirrut Imwe. You will never lose me. Nothing in any galaxy could turn me from you. If you can keep nothing else in that foolish head of yours, keep that. You are my Xino'ai. That is forever…and that is where the faith I have left goes. You. _Us,_ " he said as he rested his forehead against Chirrut's, the words gentle but no less fierce. "I've no use for the Force. I turn only from it, never from you. Never mind about me; I care not what the galaxy does to _me,_ but the Force turned from _you_ when you needed it most. That is something I can never forgive."

"That isn't true," Chirrut said softly as he tangled his fingers in Baze's wet hair, keeping them pressed tightly together. "The Force _was_ with me when I needed it most…because it brought me to _you_ …and you reminded me of that when you put your faith in me. You make me strong when I am weak," he continued, pressing a chaste kiss to the other man's lips. "The Force flows between us…and it brought us together. I _have_ to believe that."

"Whatever you need," Baze returned, slowly letting his hands drop to the bed and allowing Chirrut to resume sectioning off his hair in order to get it back in its braids.

"It isn't going to be easy," Chirrut said as he worked, guiding each strand of hair into a clean braid. He was happy to discover how familiar each motion was, how easy it was to do this by feel alone. "I think we both know that, but…we'll get through," he finished, and for each braid he tied off, he sealed it with a kiss.

"We will," Baze agreed, reaching a hand back to grip Chirrut's.

XxX

It wasn't easy. Of course it wasn't. Starting from scratch after the life you knew was burned down around your ears never could be, but it still had to be done. So they did.

Chirrut's first step in the recovery process was to craft himself a new staff – something more durable than the training staves he'd been using before that final assault. For that, he turned to the Revna outpost's grove of petrified uneti trees. Not that the trees were actually petrified, but for some reason, the joking name for the eerie-looking uneti trees had stuck a long time before either of them had been born. Baze didn't much like spending time out in the grove, something about feeling unsettled there. So while he spent time cobbling together usable weapons from the outpost's mostly junked stores, Chirrut would be out in the grove working on his staff.

Chirrut didn't feel peaceful in the grove, not exactly. He wasn't really sure _what_ it was he felt from the ancient trees, but it filled him with a sense of resolve. It reaffirmed his flagging faith in his own strength as he moved among the trees, seeking out one that called to him.

He'd kept Kana's lightsaber after her death…after losing his sight. The kyber in the hilt called liltingly to him in the dark, and at first he'd thought he was simply meant to keep the saber as a reminder, a small memorial to everything that was lost that night. But now he knew what it was he needed to do.

Once he'd found the proper tree and harvested the necessary material, he deconstructed the lightsaber. Tempering the uneti with fire, he used the pieces of the saber to construct a grip and a lamp to cap the staff with. The former weapon's kyber core he tucked safe into the lamp to carry with him always. While he certainly had the skill to use the staff as a weapon, it was much more than that for him. Chiefly, it was a means of interacting with the world, and it would serve as a symbol for him on many different levels. It served as a reminder of what had gone before, and as a symbol of the illumination within his own being. Both literally and figuratively, it was a light in darkness, a reminder that nothing was lost where the Force dwelt, and the Force was everywhere – a light in his darkness.

If Chirrut thought he'd been a master of zama-shiwo before, his first true awakening was in realizing how blind he'd been _before_ he'd lost his sight. More than just a martial art, like the staff, the discipline became his way of interacting with the world. Lacking the ease of sight, it became necessary for him to sharpen all of his other senses in order to gain the needed awareness of his surroundings and the space he occupied within them. When coupled with the input from the echo locator box Baze cobbled together for him, Chirrut was pretty well able to get around on his own. His dedication to remastering himself helped him to stay focused and to keep his mind from less savory thoughts and memories…but even _he_ couldn't remain focused every second of every day.

The memories would find him at night, catching him unawares in the liminal moments between waking and sleeping. They would thread themselves through his unconscious mind, transforming peaceful sleep into chains of terrifying nightmare, leaving him to wake screaming to the memory of agony…the feel of Niner's callous hands on his body, defiling the sacred territory of his wedding vow…the poisoned whisper of his words in his ear…

 _"This pain…do you feel this pain?"_

 _"Please, Chirrut. Don't make me hurt you."_

 _"You've fought for such a long time, but now your skills won't save you. What will you do?"_

There was nothing he _could_ do – nothing but scream his horror and his fear and his despair to the unfeeling dark. Scream for every moment he hadn't that night. Scream until Baze's voice could reach him through the tangled web of his night terrors.

 _"Chirrut! Chirrut, wake up! It's a_ ll right! _Please_ wake up," his husband pleaded with him.

"B- Baze?" he choked out, fingers scrabbling to grasp at his partner's clothing, his heart twisting with fresh guilt at the desperation in the other man's voice.

"It's okay. It's okay," Baze soothed repeatedly as he drew Chirrut's trembling form into his arms, carefully easing the rigid tension from his shoulders with gentle hands. "You're safe. It's over now. It was only a nightmare. They can't hurt you. I'm here. I'm here, Chirrut."

"Baze," Chirrut whispered as he clung to the larger man, still shaking horribly.

"I'm here," Baze continued to repeat. Apart from these simple words, they didn't speak, just clung together in the dark until Chirrut had mostly calmed. They didn't typically get anymore sleep on nights like this one. They'd just lie together until morning, each taking comfort from the other's presence. Sadly, though, these nightmares were not the worst of it.

Sometimes Chirrut would wake soundlessly from a nightmare and, feeling too guilty to wake his husband from the little sleep he got, he would try to deal with things on his own. But that led to incidents like being unable to forget the feel of his attackers pulling at his hair. When Baze woke to the sound of a vibro-shiv, it was to find Chirrut clumsily hacking away his hair in chunks. He quickly moved to take the blade from him, holding him in his arms until he'd calmed down.

"If you need me, you wake me up," Baze scolded him later as he carefully shaved away the last of Chirrut's hair.

"I know…you don't sleep much," Chirrut said quietly, clutching at his knees to keep his hands from shaking.

"That doesn't matter. You're more important," Baze said firmly. "And if you need me, you _have_ to wake me up. I don't _care_ what time it is. The only way we're going to get through this is together."

"What? I can't cut my own hair without help now?" Chirrut snapped out bitterly. He regretted the words the moment they were out, but it still made him feel a little better to give voice to his frustration. And in response to that frustration, he could feel the sorrow coming off of Baze like ripples in a pool. He felt the displacement of the air as his husband moved around to stand in front of him.

"It isn't that and you know it," he began, lowering his face to Chirrut's to press their foreheads together, cradling his face between his large hands – a gesture he used in lieu of being able to look him in the eye. "Like this…shaking, half out of your mind…you could've hurt yourself. What help is there for us out here?" They were safe from the Empire this far out, but they were also completely isolated. In the event of an actual emergency situation, there really was no help to be had.

Chirrut managed to still the trembling in his hands as he reached them up to cover Baze's hands with them. Then he pressed his lips lightly against Baze's.

"I'm sorry, Xino'ai," he whispered against the former Guardian's lips. "I don't- _mean_ to shut you out. I just…"

"You don't have to explain yourself," Baze reassured him when he found he couldn't finish. "You don't have to do this alone. I'm here for you. I'm here."

"I know," Chirrut said softly, swallowing back a lump of hurt. It wasn't that he _didn't_ know. It was just difficult to remember that he didn't _have_ to shut Baze out anymore…after he'd struggled so hard to block him out that night – for _both_ their sakes. It was still hard…to let him back in as easily as he'd once been able to.

Even so, these episodes were still not the worst of his traumas.

At least the night terrors came from sleep – from something unconscious that was beyond his control. What was truly terrifying was when the memories caught him unawares during his waking hours.

The first time it happened, he and Baze had been sparring out in one of the empty courtyards. Baze always complained loudly over having to serve as his training dummy, but Chirrut knew his partner really enjoyed seeing him getting better, returning to the prowess he'd had prior to losing his sight. So Chirrut drew a certain exhilaration from that secret happiness. He was really able to slip into the forms, moving through each blow with Baze like a dance. But then one of his blows knocked Baze to the ground and the small shout of pain that escaped him shot through Chirrut's brain like a blaster bolt.

At first, he didn't know what was happening. It was like that single sound completely erased the weeks that had passed between the fall of the temple and this moment. Chirrut suddenly found himself back in the pools beneath the temple – helpless. Baze was hurt. They would kill him, _blind_ him…unless he surrendered…unless he…

 _No…no…stars, no. This can't happen!_

"Chirrut?"

" _No!_ " he cried out, hearing the clatter of his staff as it fell to the floor. He felt a sharp pain in his knees, but it didn't really register in his mind that he'd fallen, even as he wrapped his arms tightly around himself and he pressed his forehead to the floor, practically collapsing in on his own body.

"Chirrut!"

"No! Don't hurt him! _Please_ don't hurt him! _I'll do anything!_ Please," he cried out helplessly, the ghost of pain traveling all throughout his body. He was shaking all over and his breath was coming in short, sharp bursts.

"Chirrut," Baze's voice finally managed to break through the fog of his terror. Chirrut flinched when he felt the familiar touch on his shoulder. He _knew_ his husband's touch. Of _course_ he did…but he still expected pain from physical contact, trapped in the nightmare as he was. He still expected to be hurt, and the fact that he could feel Baze's hurt emanate through the Force only reinforced that.

"Baze…Baze…help me," he barely managed to get the words out, still unable to uncurl from the pose he'd collapsed into.

"I'm here," the larger man started as he hesitantly wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I'm here. What do you need? Tell me."

"Hold me," he whispered, unable to control his shaking. "Just- just hold me."

Baze quickly complied, easing Chirrut out of his crouched pose and into his arms, holding him until the shaking had passed and his breathing was mostly normal. When Chirrut was able to get enough breath, he started in on the old chant – a mantra, a prayer, a _plea_ to the universe to center him, for those words to be true.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

While they crouched there on the courtyard floor, Baze said nothing. Just held him and rocked him, prepared to be anything Chirrut needed him to be, and the blind Guardian didn't know if he would ever be able to find the words to express how grateful he was for that.

"How- how can I ask you to endure this…my love?" he asked, turning his face up so that they could press their foreheads together.

"What do you think you can ask that I am not prepared to give?" Baze returned, shifting first to kiss Chirrut's lips, then his forehead before pressing their foreheads back together. "It is my joy to be with you…to share both bliss and sorrow. That was the vow we made, and I mean to uphold it until the end. We _will_ get through this."

"We'll get through," Chirrut repeated as he rested his head against Baze's chest. "We _will_ get through."

XxX

If asked, Baze would say he began to take up assassin work in order to make ends meet. He knew Revna's meager supply of stores wouldn't last them forever, and while they certainly had the skill to live off what little plant and animal life Jedha yielded up, it was still nice to have that bit of income on hand.

Baze had the skill for the work of a bounty hunter. It was from his time before the temple, before Chirrut – so far in the past it was nearly forgotten, but he found it returned easily to him when he had the tools in hand. His mother had been an assassin for Black Sun when he was a child and she'd made sure her little boy was able to protect himself almost as soon as he could walk. Though the time of her death and his being pushed to join the temple as an initiate were a little hazy in his memory, he had never truly forgotten the time before. He had never forgotten her training. It was easy for him to take up the work again, and if asked, he could name all manner of practical reasons, but the real reason was that following the assassin's path allowed him to freely hunt for the monsters who'd hurt Chirrut.

He'd vowed to kill them all, and he kept that vow. The first three were easy enough – TK-212, TK-146, and TK-357. They never even had the chance to leave Jedha.

XxX

Twos he killed in a brothel, allowing him a moment to feel the fear before he died.

"Please don't kill me! Please!" the boy begged for his life, still kneeling on top of the young man he'd paid for for the night. "Spare me!"

"No," Baze said harshly before shooting him through the back of the head. He'd offered to pay the prostitute for the trauma of having someone killed on top of him, but the young man refused him, saying that the former Guardian must not know what goes on in a brothel if he thought _that_ traumatic.

From among the dead stormtrooper's discarded armor, he took a single glove. It had been three months since the temple had fallen.

XxX

Sixer he killed while the trooper was on patrol around the perimeters of the Holy City. He sniped the rest of the soldier's unfortunate unit before making himself known to his target, appearing to him out of the darkness like some awful apparition. Not allowing him a chance to react, Baze slid a vibro-shiv into the space between his helmet and neck seal, letting him feel the vibration of the blade against his throat before actually taking his life.

"What- what are you?" the shocked trooper asked in terror.

"Death," Baze answered simply as he held the stormtrooper pinned against the city wall. "I promised to come for you, didn't I?"

Then, without waiting for a response, he plunged the blade up through the man's carotid artery, holding him in place while the blood drained from him, the red fluid flowing thick and hot down his white armor. From him, Baze took the bloody neck seal.

It had been six months since the temple had fallen.

XxX

Seven he killed in a prison camp the Imperials had set up outside of Bendir City. He'd been following up on his latest lead when he and Chirrut had learned just what the Empire was doing with what they considered to be the undesirables of Jedha – dissenters, political enemies, and the like. Chirrut had decided on the spot that he wouldn't stand for it, so the two of them had infiltrated the fledgling work camp and turned it on its head before it could properly get started up. They both knew going in that it was an empty gesture at best. If the Empire wanted a camp built, it would be built. They could only delay it for so long. Chirrut had been dispirited with the whole affair, but Baze had at least been satisfied with taking down yet another of his targets.

"Well, if it isn't the temple slut with the mouth," Seven's ugly voice came to them from the end of the corridor they'd fought their way through. He was the last roadblock between them and freedom. "Come back for another go?"

Chirrut froze. Completely. He might've gone on standing frozen in the corridor until Seven shot him had Baze not been faster on the draw, not giving Seven the chance to know how death had come for him as he had with the others. He'd taken only a moment to pull a glove from the stormtrooper's body before carrying his near comatose husband from the ruined camp.

It had been thirteen months since the temple had fallen.

XxX

The challenges really came when his quarries started taking him off world. He'd already promised himself he wouldn't force Chirrut to deal with anymore of his attackers, as they'd seen how well _that_ had gone over. He was reluctant to leave Chirrut alone and even though Chirrut didn't approve of what he did, he still wanted to prove that he was capable of handling himself. So when Baze finally left Jedha to track down his latest mark, it was with an impassioned kiss and a promise upon the ink that bound them to return home alive.

Kai he killed on Takodana. He found the rapist attempting to disappear among the other thieves and murderers, AWOL from the Empire. Quietly, he sidled up to the unsuspecting former stormtrooper while he was downing shots at a bar.

"Hey, pal," the man slurred at him after knocking back yet another shot. "Here to forget?"

"No," Baze responded gruffly. "Because I _can't_."

"Well, tha's why they invented the Blue Wistie," Kai said before downing yet another shot of the electric blue liquid. "These'll wipe whatever's on your mind, pal."

"I'm not your pal," Baze growled, fingers wrapping around the grip of his blaster.

"Right. Sure," the inebriated deserter mumbled before slinging an arm around his shoulder. "Lemme ask you somethin', though. D'you…ever feel like…maybe your life didn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to?"

"Believe me, I feel that _constantly_ …TK-032… _Kai_ ," the assassin hissed in the former trooper's ear.

The man stiffened upon hearing the designation, turning to look at him in horror. Baze didn't know whether Kai actually recognized him (doubted it), or if he just thought the authorities had come for him, but whatever the case might have been, the assassin relished the terror in his target's eyes as he pressed the muzzle of his blaster to the man's stomach. Kai didn't have enough presence of mind to try to run. He just looked on his death in slack-jawed horror.

"Goodbye," Baze snarled before pulling the trigger, immediately incinerating the former Imperial's midsection.

Several cries of shock and protest echoed throughout the cantina as the charred corpse collapsed against the bar. As the dead man no longer possessed his armor, Baze took the standard issue blaster pistol he was still armed with. The diminutive proprietress of the establishment immediately approached him with a look of quiet scolding on her wrinkled face.

"You know the rules, spacer. No fighting allowed."

"No fighting here," Baze said with complete conviction as he downed the last of his target's shots. "Just disposing of the _trash_." All the same, he did get to his feet without being asked.

"Even so, you will have to leave immediately…Baze Malbus."

Baze nodded in deference to the pirate queen before taking his leave, but found himself followed to her front gate just the same.

"I thought I noticed a Malbus skulking around. How long has it been for you, little one?" she asked, having the decency not to move around and look him in the eye.

"A lifetime," he responded faintly. "I was a child when you knew me, Maz."

"Heh, you still _are_ that, Baze," she teased, reaching a hand up to rest it on his arm, "but I remember the little boy and his toy blaster who wanted to be a part of something greater than himself. Did you find your something, bao bei?"

"Found…and lost. The Empire has taken everything."

 _Even what I thought they could never take away._

"Méiyǒu, méiyǒu. That isn't so, bao bei," the pirate queen said as she moved around to look up at him, not looking him in the eye, but up at the spot over his heart, out of sight but still plain to all who knew, and Maz knew. Already she had read the whole story inside of him. A sad smile moved across her ancient face as she moved a hand up to trace the lines of the Mark. "He has been good for you, this boy. Chirrut. He gives of himself without any thought of taking. The Force has brought you together. _Nothing_ can sever that – the bond of the Xino'ai. They _cannot_ destroy what you really are…but your hurt is still very great, yours and his both."

Baze raised his eyebrows when Maz finally brought her eyes up to meet his, not completely certain what to do as she looked into him.

"Your mother was not always a good woman. Actually, more often than not, she was a very _bad_ woman, but she did love you. Druzale Malbus _tried_ to do right by you, even if she didn't go about it the proper way."

Baze sighed as he closed his eyes, shaking his head. "So what does this have to do with Chirrut and I?"

"I am saying you must not make her mistakes, little one. You must not run from that which you love most of all!" Maz insisted.

"I'm not running from Chirrut! I-"

"Then what _are_ you doing? Hmm? What are you doing all the way out here when you could be with him?" she demanded, raising a skeptical eyebrow of her own.

"Punishing the monsters that did this!" Baze snapped.

"And what will that make better, huh? Will killing these men restore to your Chirrut what he has lost? What _you_ have lost?"

"If it would help Chirrut, then I'd-"

"Stars above, little one, you would move the galaxy itself if you thought it would make him smile, but you already know the truth. All this senseless killing will change nothing."

"I have nothing else to give him," Baze whispered, looking off to the side, up, _anywhere_ but at her.

"Nothing, Baze? Really? Is the love of a gentle, giving soul such as yours not enough? You are a protector, bao bei, not a killer. A _Guardian._ "

"Oh? Really?" he spat back bitterly, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. "If I'm such a great protector, why couldn't I protect him when he needed me most?"

"You _did_. He _knows_ that. Whose fault is it you don't recognize when that was? If you only focus on your own failings, you will end up never seeing what it was you _did_ protect. Would you let that destroy the love that exists between you?"

Baze gave a bark of bitter laughter at this. "What happened to 'they _cannot_ destroy what you really are'?" he ground out, throwing her words unthinkingly back in her face.

"Destroy from without? No. Certainly not. That would be impossible. To blacken and wither from within for lack of care, _yes._ Any living thing can perish from want of love. So long as you continue to enslave yourself to the past, you are _failing_ to give your marriage the care that it needs. Baze, take it from an old woman who knows. Give up this foolish obsession. _Go home._ "

"Chirrut wanted this," Baze tried to argue, feeling something tangled and harsh pricking at the back of his throat, stinging behind his eyes. "He insisted…wanted the chance to prove he would be fine on his own. He _wanted this_."

"He did not and you know it. There are other ways of accomplishing that end. He will never stop you, but I think you know how it pains him to watch you take life. This man…he did not have to die. He might have lived…done better."

At this, Baze pulled completely away from the diminutive pirate queen, feeling his spine stiffen with rage. Every synapse in his body crackled with it

"No," he said coldly, eyes hard as he stared out at the beauty of the green and living world that spread out from Maz's door. "Defector or not, there are some things that can never be forgiven. I _cannot_ …forgive them for what they did to Chirrut."

Maz sighed in frustration as she coaxed the assassin down to his knees, finally looking him directly in the eyes. After several moments, another sad smile moved across her face.

"As I said, your hurt is very great, but your eyes are the eyes of a man in love – a man prepared to _fight_ for what he loves. All I can say to you is have care how you fight that battle. Go your way in peace, Baze Malbus. Your husband is waiting for you," she said, briefly laying a comforting hand on his cheek before turning to go back inside the castle. Baze didn't look back when he took his leave to go. The way back to Jedha was long and it was better not to waste time.

It had been six years since the temple had fallen.

XxX

Tek he killed in a medical research lab on the Imperial prison moon of Tigrin.

Becoming more and more deranged as the years wore on, the trooper had come completely undone, and though he could no longer follow their orders, he could still be of use to the Empire as a test subject.

TK-324 had already been put through more unspeakable tortures than Baze would ever be able to heap on him by the time the assassin located the former stormtrooper, strapped to a lab table with needles shoved through his stomach. For several long moments, Baze actually considered leaving him like that, only marginally satisfied with the fact that the Empire could torture its own pawns a thousand times better than he could.

"I won't say you don't deserve this fate," he said to the half conscious man, "but I suppose you move even me to pity, Tek," he finished, very slowly drawing his vibro-shiv, allowing his mark to hear the sound of it activating.

Tek's eyes blinked open upon hearing the sound. Baze was almost surprised to note the cloudiness in the left eye.

"How long has it been since anyone called me that name?" the once human thing rasped out "Who are you?"

"Someone you left for dead a long time ago," Baze said as he laid the vibro-shiv across his quarry's neck. "I would return the favor and leave you to them, but it really was just too much effort to get in here, so I will kill you."

Again, Baze was almost surprised to see the flicker of recognition in his enemy's eyes. "Is that you…temple boy?"

"It is."

"Ah. It would be that that comes to get me in the end," he said with a wet, gurgling sound that Baze imagined was meant to be a laugh. "And how is the blind one?"

"He lives," Baze snarled, resisting the urge to cut the Imperial's throat too quickly, "which is more than _you_ can say."

"Well…you're not wrong," Tek said with the same ugly sound. "I don't know- if I should curse his name or thank him. It was him who opened my eyes…and yes, I'm _choking_ on the irony in that," he said, the intensity in his words causing his throat to rise just slightly, allowing Baze's blade to just barely nick his skin, letting flow a small trickle of blood.

"I would never give Chirrut thanks from _any_ of you. Not for anything," Baze hissed.

"Can't blame you for that one. So what are you gonna do? Pay me back in kind? Gonna stick a blaster up my ass?"

"No. I _won't_ be like you. Not ever. What I _will_ do is watch you die…slowly. Any last words?"

Tek just offered him a lopsided, psychotic grin, and in his own ruined voice echoed Chirrut's words from all those years ago.

" _Do it._ "

So he did.

Baze ran the shiv slowly across the ex-trooper's throat, being careful to make a shallow cut. Then he stood back to watch the pitiful creature choke on his own blood. It took him ten minutes to die.

Once again, as his latest mark was no longer in possession of his armor, he had to take something else in tribute to the kill. So he stripped a few pieces of the plastoid facing from the medical table, thinking to fashion it into a few more pieces of armor for himself. Only one of them remained left alive – the last of them…their leader…

Niner.

Unfortunately, the price for being able to kill Tek was imprisonment. Baze wasn't able to escape the facility fast enough and he was captured. They tortured him, tried to get him to talk, figure out if maybe he was working for the Alliance, but this time, his enemies had nothing to use against him. He gave them nothing.

They went so far as to offer him employment, desperate to know how he'd managed to infiltrate their facility, but Baze's own pride and hate would never permit such a thing. He chose imprisonment instead, and though he tried his best to escape, it wasn't as easy a feat from the inside as it was from without. He'd long lost track of how long he'd been imprisoned when all the commotion started.

It began when the regular evening rations weren't brought around to the cells. It evolved into a real situation when the alarms began to blare, signaling an emergency. Baze tried to see what was happening, but he could really only get a look at the section of hallway that was directly in front of his cell. Then he began to hear the terrified shouts of stormtroopers along with the echoing repeat of blaster fire.

Then all the panicked and terror-stricken noises came to a halt and there was a hooded figure standing in front of his cell. Baze took an involuntary step back as the cell door hissed open.

He recognized the Guardian robes the figure wore, as well as the lightbow at his back and the staff he carried, but he almost didn't recognize the face that was revealed when the figure pushed back his hood.

He had known Chirrut Imwe since they were both very young. Even when he was in pain or saddened, the lines and curves of his body tended to radiate a strong sense of inner calm, whether he'd been working through his forms or sneaking food from the kitchens. Even after what had happened in the sacred pools, Chirrut had somehow been able to manage to smile for him. All of that was gone now as Baze looked at Chirrut. The very bend of his shoulders sent spikes of rage into the air around the Guardian. The lines of his face spoke of a long, slow-burning anguish and, though they were clouded over, his sightless eyes burned with a fire that Baze could practically feel ignite the space between them. This was the side of Chirrut that only his enemies saw – the warrior the normally calm and collected monk had cultivated within his nonchalant exterior to carry out his vows of protecting the Holy City. Baze was fully aware that _he_ was the only being to have seen this part of Chirrut's heart and live to tell about it.

However, that hard exterior of pain, anger, and fear cracked and fell away the moment Chirrut stepped into the cell. A relieved, exultant, broken smile lit his face, but the rest of his body spoke of months of worry and suffering. For a moment, the blind man leaned heavily on his staff and Baze was afraid he was going to collapse altogether. So struck was he by the sudden change in demeanor, all he could manage to choke out was, "You're late."

His husband let out a loud, harsh laugh at this. The sound of it echoed off the cell walls and reverberated through Baze's bones, bordering on madness. Chirrut shook his head several times as he surveyed him.

"You did not come home, Baze. Forgive me the time it took to learn where it was my wayward partner had disappeared to."

"You- shouldn't have come here," Baze started, a bit more sense returning to him as he moved forward to catch Chirrut in his arms. He felt his heart twist in silent grief at how desperately Chirrut held him. "How did you-"

"They have taken everything else," Chirrut whispered harshly against his skin, the pain of it lancing directly to Baze's heart. "I will not let them take _you_ away from me."

 _Oh…Chirrut…my love._

"Chirrut," he whispered into the smaller man's hair, grown longer in his absence. He dropped several kisses on the top of Chirrut's head before muttering, "We should- probably get out of here…before more troops come."

"Don't be ridiculous, Husband. There are no Imperials left alive in this installation."

Baze's grip on Chirrut tightened as they sank to the cell floor together. On the one hand, he was always happy to watch Imperial dogs burn. On the other, he didn't really know _how_ to feel about the notion that Chirrut, who usually spared his opponents if he could help it, had taken so many lives…just to rescue _him._ Mostly, he was just left with an aching sense of how painful these last months must have been for Chirrut. Not saying anything for a long while, the two of them just knelt there on the floor, holding each other as tightly as they could.

Ultimately, Chirrut was too weary and too heartsick to remain awake, so he fell asleep in Baze's arms. And Baze, though he was weak and malnourished from his time in prison, was still strong enough to lift Chirrut's slighter form in his arms. So, slinging Chirrut's bow and staff onto his own back, Baze picked up the man who'd just obliterated an entire Imperial installation, his husband, and carried him out of the facility, cradling him lovingly in his arms the entire time.

It had been ten years since the temple had fallen.

XxX

(A/N) And for our last chapter, we'll see how it all ties together with Rogue One.


	4. I Will Hide You

**If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)**

 _Chapter 4: I Will Hide You_

Baze was no longer a young man when Saw Gerrera sought him out. He and Chirrut did their stints in NiJedha, resisting the Empire where they could and seeing that Asana was still doing well, but they did still mostly live in Revna. So far as Baze knew, only Asana, Trance, and Jerrin knew their location, so the rebel extremist must have gotten it from one of them, Asana being the least likely. Whatever the case may have been, it was all that was going through his mind as he went to meet Gerrera in the outpost's main sanctuary.

The rebel leader was accompanied by what could only be described as an entourage, consisting of humans both local and not, and of several other beings. As jarring as it was to watch the man struggle for movement in what was left of his body, all of his followers showed him a distinct awe and loyalty. Baze didn't say anything as he watched them approach, just surveyed the small band as they moved through the chamber.

"My, but this seems like a lot of people," Chirrut commented as he entered from the grove, moving to take his normal place a few steps in front of Baze. "And all just to see two old hermits."

"Which of you is Baze Malbus?" Gerrera rasped out, gaze shifting between the pair of them.

"What would you want with Baze Malbus?" Chirrut asked when Baze remained silent. "I can promise you would find him very poor company. He chews with his mouth open and he cannot be bothered to pick up after himself. Do you know how many times I've tripped over stripped blasters?"

"You, then," Gerrera said as his eyes focused on Baze. The former Guardian kept his silence, though, just sizing the rebel leader up.

"You still have not said what it is that you want of Baze Malbus," Chirrut said pointedly, giving a forceful thump of his staff against the stone floor.

"To talk of- combining our forces," the rebel leader finally said, still keeping his focus on Baze.

"And what forces are those? Do you think we are hiding an army in this small outpost?" Chirrut asked, sweeping an arm to indicate the empty space around them. "Though I suppose Baze when he hasn't bathed could be counted as an army all on its own."

Baze's lip curled minutely at that, a gesture no one but Chirrut would've been able to pick up on. Resisting the urge to engage in his husband's typical back and forth, he remained silent, continuing to take the measure of this infamous rebel.

"It is not so much…physical forces I speak of," Gerrera said, still looking at Baze as if he expected a response. "Tales are told across hundreds of rebel cells, tales of the Empire's onslaught against the Guardians of the Whills, and of the Guardian who made his last stand against them, almost single-handedly."

"Greatly exaggerated," Baze finally spoke up, always willing to disparage himself. He was more than a little pleased to see the rebel leader's eyebrows rise at this.

"Not so much," Chirrut said before either of them could say anything more. "Baze Malbus defended the essence of the Guardians that night…and he did not surrender," the blind Guardian said, and Baze was sure he was the only one to hear the hitch in his partner's voice on the last part of the sentence. "I mean to ensure that they sing songs about his victories for millennia to come."

" _That_ is what I seek," Gerrera declared loudly. "That status. Your story has spread, Baze Malbus. The people of Jedha remember your name. Surely you've heard the Empire has begun to strip your temple of its kyber stores."

"We have heard," Baze responded gruffly, but gave no more than that.

"I don't know what, but it's for a purpose. It isn't just about the Empire secularizing everything. They're building something, and it ends here with Jedha. The Alliance won't listen, so I have no choice but to take matters into my own hands."

"So again, what is it that you want Baze Malbus for?" Baze pressed, now _much_ more than a little pleased at Gerrera's confusion over his use of the third person.

"To rally the people of Jedha to this cause. If the lost hero of the Whills returns alive after eighteen years, the people will flock to you. The Empire cannot put down an entire moon," the man declared, and his followers quickly began to shift and mutter to each other in excitement, clearly prepared for their fearless leader's rhetoric to sway yet another doubter.

But Baze was unmoved.

"You think so? You think we did not fight when the Republic fell? Do you think we held something back that night? Something that will make them tremble in fear? No. Perhaps things work differently in this larger galaxy you come from, but the Empire has _already_ put down this whole moon."

"So get back up again! The moment we cease to get back to our feet is the moment the Empire has _truly_ beaten us," Gerrera threw at him.

"So what?" Baze challenged, moving up to stand in front of Chirrut. "You would have me call out innocent folk to fight your battles for you? To _die_ for you? Or die anyway when they cannot get out of your way fast enough? I know you, Saw Gerrera. You do not care who lives or who dies, so long as you can destroy what you hate. I? I can never be like that."

"You know nothing about me, Guardian," the rebel leader ground out, glaring fiercely at him.

" _Don't_ call me Guardian!" Baze snarled, barely resisting the urge to reach for a blaster. "I am no Guardian. You say they tell stories, but they can never know the truth of what happened that night. If they tell stories, it is because they need them, not because they reflect anything true about a man who fought his last battle. There _is_ no Guardian Malbus. He died…in NiJedha…beneath a crumbling temple…failing to protect what was most precious to him," he said, voice slowly falling off. He didn't realize that he was trembling, be it from anger or sorrow or both, until he felt Chirrut's steadying hand against his back. At the very last, he whispered, "I cannot give you what you seek."

Gerrera sighed, shaking his head. "If that is your decision, there is nothing I can do to change your mind, but know that the offer stands, _should_ you ever change it. I believe you will know where to find us if the time comes," the rebel leader said before turning and leading his followers from the outpost. It wasn't until after they'd gone that Baze slowly dropped to the floor, Chirrut not far behind him, easily slipping his arms around Baze's body to hold him against his chest.

"So…what do you think?" Baze asked him after several minutes of this tender contact.

"I think that you are far gone indeed if you feel you actually need to _ask_ me what I think," Chirrut said softly, pressing a gentle kiss just behind his left ear.

"Do I disappoint you? That I am not the man I was before that night?" he asked, clutching one of Chirrut's hands tightly in his.

"Neither of us are, Xino'ai. I am not even the man I was last night. Nor are you the man you were last month. Time goes on," Chirrut said sagely as he reached his other hand up to trace the familiar lines of Baze's Mark through the coarse fabric of his flight suit. "We must go on with it."

"Then you think we should help."

"I think…it is time we returned to NiJedha. I have had you to myself long enough. I have been selfish. I know it, but I have needed you. Our city needs you now," his husband said, his hold on him tightening briefly.

"Heh, if they need anyone, it's the unshakeable Guardian. You can be the folk hero they need, protect the weak, defend the innocent," Baze found himself extolling, bringing Chirrut's hand up to his lips and pressing a kiss to each fingertip, taking pleasure in the way his husband shivered against his back, his sensitive fingers set alight by the intimate contact. "As for myself, I will do what I failed to do eighteen years ago. _I_ will protect _you._ "

"As you will, my love, but whatever we do, we will do it together."

XxX

Baze was fairly confident he recognized a few of Gerrera's rebels the day Chirrut stepped in to help Jyn Erso, and of course they recognized him and Chirrut, so if he had to guess, he would say they immensely enjoyed putting bags over their heads, hauling them off to Gerrera's base and throwing them in a cell.

He was worried at first how Chirrut might react to being imprisoned. As many times as it had happened over the last nineteen years, his reactions had varied just as many. Much as Chirrut's mantra annoyed him, he also breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the chanted words. The fact that Chirrut could speak them at all meant he wasn't completely lost to a fit of panic.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

"You pray?" he asked, keeping up his typical put-upon demeanor because Chirrut needed him to at this stage, though he found himself grinning wryly the entire time. "Really? He's praying for the door to open," he complained to their rebel cellmate. At least he _assumed_ the man was rebel. Frankly, it was more effort than he wanted to put in to follow the politics of the Alliance these days. Whoever he was, he was only half-listening to them, focused instead on trying to figure out how to pick the lock.

"It bothers him because he knows it's possible," Chirrut shot back serenely, his panic mostly worked through. So now he would keep to banter. "Baze Malbus was once the most devoted Guardian of us all."

"Now he's just _your_ guardian?" the rebel tried to jibe back, though neither of them rose to take his bait.

 _That is a truer statement than you are ever likely to know, boy,_ Baze thought as he watched the rebel roll his eyes, immediately going back to work.

"I'm beginning to think the Force and I have different priorities," the young rebel ground out.

"Relax, Captain," Chirrut responded. "We've been in worse cages than this one." Also far truer than this boy would ever know.

"Yeah? Well, this is a first for me," the captain tried to snap back, though the lie was plain even to Baze.

"There is more than one sort of prison, Captain," Chirrut told him. "I sense that you carry yours wherever you go."

The boy stared at Chirrut mistrustfully for a moment before turning away from them. Baze gave an ugly, hollow-sounding laugh at the exchange, because really, who would know better than the pair of them about carrying their prisons with them?

For a long while, Baze just stood leaning against the cell wall, focus shifting between the captain's intent work and the mirth moving across Chirrut's face at whatever emotion he was picking up from the boy. But Baze gradually found his focus staying more and more on Chirrut as his husband's demeanor passed from amusement into unease. The shadows on his face grew deeper as his thoughts turned darker and his head began to bob more noticeably from side to side, something clearly troubling him. Baze had to tamp down the urge to ask him what was wrong. They trusted one another – had grown fully confident in their love and their marriage. Years together had taught him that when Chirrut needed him to know what was going through his head, he would tell him. The days of shutting each other out were long behind them.

And indeed, Chirrut did let him know what was happening when he finally leaned his head back against the cell wall and asked, "Who's the one in the next cell?"

"What?" Baze asked as he glanced up at the bars that separated the two cells, now thoroughly unnerved by whatever had been troubling his husband. Moving quickly toward the divide, he looked into the shadows of the next cell over, just barely making out the outlines of a human figure. He didn't take note of anything about this figure, though. The only piece of information that filtered into his brain was the Imperial insignia that adorned the man's sleeve.

"An Imperial pilot!" he snarled, beginning to understand what must have been chipping away at his husband's composure. No doubt this scum was just as evil as the rest. "I will _kill him!_ " he shouted, reaching through the bars to get his hands around the man's neck.

"No. Wait! _Back off!_ " the captain tried to stop him, but Baze was intent on choking the life from the pilot. After all, he was not in the habit of allowing Imperials to cross his path and live. It wasn't until Chirrut spoke again that he began to understand what was happening.

"What's wrong with him?" the blind Guardian asked, and it was the faint tremor in his voice that made Baze begin to realize…

…the pilot wasn't fighting back. He was just hanging in Baze's death grip, no more in control of his body than a doll might be, and when the former Guardian looked into his intended victim's eyes, he knew exactly where he'd seen that blank, broken expression before.

Nineteen years ago…on Chirrut's face…after Niner had broken so violently into his mind…

Baze released the Imperial with a shocked gasp, and it was his shock more than anything else that so easily allowed the rebel captain to push him back from the bars. Unthinkingly, he moved back to his husband's side, fingers seeking out Chirrut's as he moved to his knees beside him. It wouldn't be visible to anyone who didn't know him, but Baze could feel the slight shake of Chirrut's hand in his – a sure sign that he still might be overwhelmed.

It had never been the fact that their cellmate was an Imperial that had bothered Chirrut. No. It was the fact that in him, he'd sensed the same pain, the same horrifying knowledge that his body and mind were helpless, and there was nothing he could do to protect them.

Whatever it was Gerrera and his insurgents had actually done to him, this pilot had been raped.

XxX

Though Chirrut managed to keep his thoughts on the events at hand, Bodhi Rook remained at the front of his mind, keeping him right on the verge of a panic. Granted, he had not had them as often since rescuing Baze from Tigrin, but they did still happen, and now would be an exceedingly poor time to have one. So he kept himself very tightly in check, even as the ground began to shake beneath them and the air began to resound with the roar of a thousand sand storms.

He was really starting to think he might work through this one, serving as a friendly guide to the Imperial pilot and keeping him from falling into a panic of his own, but then they actually made it out of the monastery.

While he couldn't see anything that was happening, he could certainly feel Baze's horror at the sight of it. It wasn't often that Baze was truly afraid, but now was such a time.

 _What have they done?_ _ **What have they done?!**_ The fear and anger pulsed so strongly through his husband's thoughts, Chirrut could almost hear them aloud. _Those_ _ **monsters!**_

And it was Baze's emotions, more than anything else, that finally sent him over the edge. His breath began to come in the short, painful bursts that signified the onset of a panic attack, his limbs seizing up as he began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Baze," he rasped out, reaching to grip his husband's hand tightly in his, telling him without words what was happening to him.

Baze swore roundly in Jedhan when he realized, both of them knowing they had only moments to act. "Come on!" Baze shouted, keeping a hold of Chirrut's hand as he began to run, mindless of the protest of Chirrut's traitorous body. Baze actually had to pick him up and throw him the final distance onto the boarding ramp of some kind of craft.

Once inside, the pair immediately dropped to their knees, Baze holding Chirrut tightly in his arms while Chirrut fought to control his breathing. He could sense it now – the gaping wound in the Living Force. The pain and terror that had once been their home…the place where the Force had brought them together…

 _I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

He pushed the words through his ragged mind, unable to speak them aloud. Clinging tightly to Baze, he just breathed in his familiar scent, letting each individual nuance move through his thoughts. It was better than allowing himself to become lost in the agony that surrounded them.

It had been some time since either of them had seen any kind of refresher, so there was the scent of sweat and dirt. There was the vaguely musky scent of the blaster lubricant Baze used, a custom blend he always made sure to have on hand to avoid having to worry about the scent of standard lubricant. There was the strange scent of ozone that always seemed to cling to the repeater cannon. Then there was the scent of miru and fresh bread leftover from their breakfast – the single thread of sweetness that ran through his beloved's otherwise coarse exterior.

The walkthrough of everything familiar helped him to get his breath again, these scents that lingered between them – now the only things that remained of their home, save for each other. And they did still have each other. That was the truly important thing in all this.

"Are you all right?" Baze whispered to him in a voice only his own sensitive ears would catch.

"I will be fine," he whispered back, in much better control of his own body now.

He could feel some of the tension ease from Baze's arms as his husband released him. No doubt Baze hoped not to draw attention to the embrace, perhaps thinking to pass it off as two friends attempting to help each other through a trying escape. They were not as openly affectionate with each other in public as they had been before the temple fell and they both knew it. They never talked about it, but it was a distinct scar that Niner had left on the both of them – a desire to conceal how much they meant to each other, to keep their one true weakness hidden from anyone who would use it against them…because it _had_ been once before and they both knew they wouldn't survive it if it were to happen again. Though Chirrut didn't _believe_ anyone aboard this ship meant them any harm, it was still too soon to say for certain, and now that they were safe away from Jedha, their new companions' attention would more than likely be turning to more immediate things. Before Baze could pull away entirely, though, Chirrut reached out to grip his hand.

"Baze…tell me," he choked out painfully, knowing what he'd felt die behind them…what he'd felt in his husband's heart, but still needing to hear it from him. "All of it? The _whole city?_ "

Even though he knew none of the others would see it in the former Guardian's stiff and angry countenance, Chirrut could feel the pain that ran through him – the shocked disbelief that whatever he'd seen had actually been real. Painful as it was, he knew they both needed that confirmation now before they'd have any chance of healing from this.

" _Tell me,_ " he pleaded, voice desperate, but still firm.

"All of it," Baze finally bit out, squeezing Chirrut's hand for a moment before finally pulling away, leaving the others to think what they might. It wasn't much, but as they all turned their energies toward other things, this small moment of acknowledgement would be enough. They both knew quite well how this process worked.

Healing happened in small moments.

XxX

If Baze didn't love Chirrut so damn much, if he didn't _need_ the blind fool in order to live, he honestly might have killed him for the insane chase Jyn Erso's "clear path" led them on. First in a much needed skirmish against the Empire, then to the central base of the rebellion they'd turned away from so long ago, and now to a heavily guarded world under Imperial control – more than likely to their deaths. Even so, Chirrut would follow the path that the Force illuminated before him, and Baze would follow wherever _he_ led.

That didn't mean, however, that they couldn't take a moment out of this famous destiny for themselves; and Chirrut took the opportunity to do just that while the other rebels gathered their gear for the run on Scarif. Baze would admit to some confusion when his husband took him by the hand and led him to an out of the way alcove in the hangar, but Chirrut's intentions became clear when he reached out a hand to rest it upon Baze's heart – over the Mark. For several moments, he just stood still, eyes drifting between Chirrut's hand and his face.

"Praise," Chirrut began softly, "for out of the all that is one there has been raised a soul like no other. He calls to me in the darkness and my soul shines the brighter. Praise, for he is my heart, my soul, my Beloved. He is the one that was made for me, as I was made for him," he intoned gently, echoing the words of their wedding vows so many years before – one final reaffirmation.

When Chirrut stood on tiptoe, Baze leaned his face down closer to allow him to press a kiss to his forehead, then a kiss to his eyes, then a longer, more lingering kiss to his lips.

"With these lines, I bind myself unto you, my blood mingled with yours, forever bound throughout the strands of the Force," Chirrut whispered against his lips. "Let nothing living doubt how I love you." Then, at the last, he lowered his head to drop a loving kiss onto the Mark.

Gazing solemnly down at his husband for several moments, Baze pulled away from him for just a second in order to take Chirrut's staff and lean it against the wall. Then he twined his fingers together with Chirrut's, raising his lover's hands up to his face in order to press a kiss to each fingertip, drawing a tremulous sigh of contentment from his lips with every point of contact. Then Baze released Chirrut's left hand, raising his own now free one to rest it over his husband's twin Mark.

"Praise," he returned gruffly, though he knew Chirrut could hear the tenderness in his words, "for out of the all that is one there has been raised a heart like no other. He guides my steps when I have lost my way and my heart sings with joy at his approach. Praise, for he is my heart, my soul, my Beloved. He is the one that was made for me, as I was made for him." Then he retraced the same line of kisses down Chirrut's face – a kiss of respect to his forehead, a kiss of adoration to his sightless eyes, and a kiss of love to his lips. This kiss he held even longer than Chirrut had, taking a moment to just _feel_ the other man in his arms before he allowed time to start moving away from them again.

"With these lines, I bind myself unto you, my blood mingled with yours, forever bound throughout the strands of time," he vowed anew, pressing one more quick kiss to Chirrut's lips and drawing a small but joyful laugh from his throat. "Let nothing living doubt how I love you," he finished before lowering his head to Chirrut's chest to leave his own vow against the other man's Mark. There were no masters anymore to solemnize their promises to each other, but they needed no one else to tell an unfeeling galaxy how they loved each other. This moment was only for them…and it was interrupted all too soon.

"Baze, Chirrut, we're nearly rea- oh. _Oh!_ " Bodhi's voice abruptly died in his throat when the pilot saw what he'd interrupted. Bowing as low as he could without completely tripping over himself, he struggled to apologize while also trying to escape.

"Oh, I- I'm so s- sorry. Please- please forgive me," Bodhi begged. "I didn't realize…that…"

"That what, Bodhi?" Chirrut asked him languidly, a small, secretive smile moving easily across his face.

"That you…that the two of you are…Xino'ai," he said quietly, voice stumbling over the word. He was the only member of this small band who might really understand what that meant.

"Yes, we are," Chirrut returned, reaching out to grab his staff before making his way over to the young pilot. "And not even your clumsiest interruptions can change that fact, so cease your worrying," he said as he placed a hand on Bodhi's shoulder. "After all, I sense that one day soon _you_ will understand just how deep such a bond can run."

At this, Bodhi smiled hesitantly, something like hope coming awake in his eyes, and in that expression, Baze suddenly saw the face of an old friend looing back at them. In Bodhi's face, he saw the eyes of Asana shining out – Asana…who had burned with Jedha, but who still somehow lived within this scrappy former Imperial. He didn't know how they might share blood, but it was plain to be seen that they did, and it was comforting to him in some way – that even one more small piece of home had survived the devastation.

"You…you really think so?" Bodhi asked.

"I know it. So keep it in mind should you find yourself facing death. There is still someone out there waiting to meet you. So go. We will be along."

"Y- yes," Bodhi stuttered out, still smiling as he moved to head back to the ship.

"Not like you to offer false hope in your predictions," Baze said once the boy had gone. "Especially not with something like _that_."

"Nothing false about it. There is a great light awaiting him beyond the darkness ahead of us. He only needs to survive long enough to reach it. No different from how we survived long enough to reach each other," Chirrut said as they began to move back toward the stolen ship.

Baze snorted. "Only to end up here?"

"Does the ending make what has come before it any less?" Chirrut returned. "Does it give the love we have lived any less value?"

"No," Baze answered, gaze following adoringly and protectively after his love as he moved confidently through the bustling hangar. "I- only wish that…"

"Yes?" Chirrut prompted when he didn't continue.

Baze shook his head. "No. Nothing. It is done. No sense in foolish wishing."

"Ah, but as you are so fond of pointing out, you fell in love with the greatest fool of them all. So I ask you: who is the more foolish? The fool or the fool who loves him?"

Baze let out a proper laugh at that one, grinning to himself as they moved into the shadows cast by the Imperial ship. "Damn your eyes, Chirrut Imwe, but you have me there."

"As I will always have you," Chirrut said as he spun gracefully about to face him, a look of warm affection smoothing the lines of his face.

"Yes. Always," Baze said tenderly as he pulled his husband to him in the shadow of the cargo ship. "Let nothing living doubt," he whispered before claiming Chirrut's lips one last time. They lingered for as long as they could, both aching to spin the moment out into eternity, but knowing just how ephemeral it truly was. Even so, they held fast to each other, giving of themselves one last time.

When they finally had to break the kiss, they kept their foreheads pressed together, cleaving tightly to every moment as time slipped away from them.

"I love you," Baze breathed against Chirrut's lips, knowing these words were not enough to contain everything he felt for the man who had stolen his heart, but that they would have to suffice just the same. Those words had loomed so large the first time he'd spoken them in the pools beneath the temple. When had they become so small in the face of what his heart was truly capable of feeling?

"And I love you, my Baze. Husband, friend, protector," Chirrut returned just as softly, hands reaching up to trace the already familiar contours of Baze's face, ultimately coming to tangle in his unkempt hair.

It was a moment they would share forever…however long that happened to be.

XxX

At first, Baze didn't know what it was that had drawn his attention. It would have to be something urgent to pull his focus away from the battle at hand. It wasn't something he heard or saw, nor anything he smelt or tasted on the heavily ionized air. It was something he _knew,_ at the very core of his being – something that drew his gaze to the citadel that had swallowed Jyn, Cassian, and K-2.

 _Niner._

TK-199.

He really had no idea _how_ , but as surely as he knew his own name, he _knew_. The Imperial _creature_ that called himself Niner was somewhere in that tower. The one he'd never been able to track down – the one that had slipped through his grasp. The only one he hadn't managed to kill, and the one who had hurt Chirrut most of all…and he was only a few hundred yards away from them now…

Baze didn't have much time to consider this notion, though, as that was also the moment the beach near-exploded beneath the onslaught of the death troopers, forcing the rebels back and away from the objective Bodhi needed them to accomplish. When only four of them made it to cover, Baze's only thought became protecting Chirrut.

Unfortunately, the blind man didn't seem to share the same priority.

In all his years of knowing and loving Chirrut, Baze had very much come to expect the unexpected from his husband, but of all the crazy things Chirrut could have done in this most dire of straits, the one thing Baze really _had not_ expected him to do was to walk directly out from his cover and straight into the hail of heavy blaster fire with his bloody prayer on his lips.

" _CHIRRUT!_ " Baze screamed in anguish as he watched, nearly choking on his own fear every time a blaster bolt struck the sand not even an inch from his husband's feet. " _Chirrut! COME BACK!_ "

But Chirrut did not. Ignoring Baze's desperate cries, he continued on through the hotbed of blaster fire, moving steadily toward the control console. Baze wanted to track his husband's impossible trek, but realized that the only thing he could do for Chirrut now was to lessen the amount of enemies firing on him, so he continued to fire back into the hail.

Somehow, against all possible odds, Chirrut reached the console and managed to flip that cursed master switch. But then he turned to make the return walk and Baze saw something shift in his face.

This was it – their end. Chirrut had known they were never making it off Scarif, and he'd accepted it.

But Baze…

…Baze could _not!_

" _NO!_ " he shouted, the intensity in his voice stopping Chirrut dead in his tracks with a look of confusion on his face. Thinking of nothing except Chirrut, Baze flung himself out into the line of fire, barely feeling the nick of a single bolt to his side as he ran to his husband. Crashing headlong into the blind man, he wrapped his arms around him as he sent them both to the ground. He made certain he was completely covering Chirrut's body with his own when the detonator exploded overhead.

Baze couldn't at first deal with all the disparate pieces of sensory input he was receiving from his battered body, so he ended up tackling each piece one by one.

First came the fact that his hearing was gone, consumed in the violence of the blast. All that remained to him was the pounding of his own blood in his ears – a harsh and never-ending drumbeat that picked up in speed as his system was flooded with adrenaline.

The next thing to come to his attention was the dull and muted sense of pain from the fire searing down through his flight suit and into his skin, burning through several layers of tissue. His armor kept him alive, protected the most vital parts, but he knew it was only the adrenaline that was keeping him from feeling how hideously painful this must be. The scent of burnt hair and cloth attacked his nose and the taste settled in his mouth like ash.

Actually, it probably really _was_ ash, he found himself thinking with an ugly croak of a laugh.

 _Aren't you forgetting something?_

 _Chirrut!_ _ **Chirrut?!**_ _Is he all right? Is he alive? Husband!_

He tried to call out, couldn't make his voice work, his throat badly damaged from inhaling super-heated air.

 _Chirrut…Chirrut,_ _ **please**_ _…_

Reaching out with desperate hands, Baze suddenly realized he was lying on his back, and it was that revelation that finally seemed to jog his vision back into working order. He could see Chirrut crouching above him, face pinched in misery as his mouth twisted, screaming words that Baze couldn't hear. Managing a weak smile, he reached up to touch his husband's face. The first sound to return to his ears was Chirrut's pain-filled voice.

"Baze! _Baze! No!_ Not like this! _Please!_ "

"It's…all right," he forced himself to croak out in a voice that was barely recognizable as anything human. "I'm going- to protect you… _always_."

"Xino'ai…hold on. Just hold on," Chirrut pleaded with him as tears poured down his face.

Baze tried to stay awake. He really did, but consciousness was quickly slipping through his fingers. The last thing to register in his mind before he was lost to the darkness was the sound of Chirrut's desperate cry.

"Baze! _Baze!_ "

XxX

Rebels and Resistance fighters for generations to come would tell stories about the Battle of Scarif. They would talk about the Imperial pilot who'd lit the way, the Alliance captain who'd rallied the troops, and the young, newly-appointed sergeant who'd led them all, doing everything in her power to see her father's final mission through.

But whenever the talk turned to Scarif, one story in particular always seemed to come to the front, told in hushed whispers of awe…and no doubt with a tiny breath of fear, as well.

That was the story of the force of nature that had rampaged the beach after former Guardian of the Whills Baze Malbus had shielded his husband from a detonator blast. The stories always told of how Chirrut Imwe had always been a power to be reckoned with, but when faced with the very real possibility of losing his husband, he'd become a truly unstoppable force. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a whirlwind of red and black sweep the blood-soaked sand, mowing down troopers like a vibro-scythe. Chirrut would always try to insist that there really hadn't been that many Imperials left, but the tales of a man outnumbered a hundred to one still persisted.

Of his original companions, the only one to actually see Chirrut in this state was Bodhi, and he never really said anything to add to or detract from the stories, but there was always something fearful and unsettled in his eyes whenever talk of that last onslaught came up.

Certainly, he could never have claimed to have known Chirrut well before Scarif, but when he'd staggered from the shuttle to try and help the few remaining survivors, he'd beheld something frightening and completely unknown – some sort of demon from out of his nightmares. Seeing the enraged warrior monk _destroy_ his former compatriots had made the pilot guiltily glad not to be an Imperial anymore. He'd even found him _self_ risking destruction when he'd approached Baze's unconscious form to try and move him.

Chirrut had been standing between them in no more than a minute, weapon aimed at Bodhi's head.

"Chirrut!" he'd shouted to be heard over the roar of distant explosions, throwing his hands in the air without even thinking. "It's Bodhi! It's me!"

Bodhi had been amazed at how quickly the Guardian had been able to cage the beast he'd glimpsed. One more moment and Chirrut really might have shot him. As he would say ever after, he had not known Chirrut Imwe well in those days, but it would always linger just at the back of his mind how vastly different the two halves of the Guardian's heart were – one the gentle, fun-loving monk, and the other…the merciless warrior, the berserker who could kill completely without conscience.

XxX

As Chirrut sat alone outside the bacta tank that held his life and his heart, he found himself wondering if maybe he wasn't playing out a scene he knew had happened many years ago – Baze waiting anxiously outside another tank, battered body barely held together while he himself hung suspended in bacta, helpless, broken in both body and spirit. Only now their positions were reversed. Now _he_ was the one left to wait while Baze floated, insulated by the healing fluid.

At the very least, Baze was free of pain now, and Chirrut drew some measure of comfort from that, but the emotions he could still sense clinging to his husband's unconscious thoughts were just as unquiet as his own. He didn't fully understand what Baze had experienced in that moment, but whatever it was, it had left him without peace…and it had been enough to alter their fate.

Chirrut had known going forward that they were not meant to make it off Scarif. For a long while, he had sensed their lives turning in that direction. There had been hope for the others, but he and his husband had been meant to leave their lives on that sand. He had known and accepted it. It was why he'd insisted on renewing their vows one last time. But in that small moment between flipping the switch and turning back to Baze, that destiny had changed. The Force had surged from his husband, bursting outward like a star going supernova. Whether or not Baze would ever believe it, the Force had brought them together yet again. The only trouble was that Chirrut couldn't understand why their causality had shifted so suddenly.

It wasn't so much that he was arrogant enough to believe he could understand the Force's every twist and turn. More that it had seemed to him in the madness of that moment that his own life was to be spared…at the cost of Baze's, and he'd been unable to accept that.

To die together, to follow him quickly into death, even to die and await their reunion, those he would've accepted. But to only be alive because Baze was _not?_ That he could not endure. They'd sacrificed so much already. He _refused_ to be the justification for Baze's death. So, for only the second time in his life, Chirrut Imwe was selfish, giving in to the rage he knew his heart was capable of and taking what he wanted for no other reason than that he wanted it – taking life not to protect Jyn's cause, but for his own selfish need for Baze to be alive. He'd kept nothing back, using every technique he'd ever learned to _demolish_ his enemies. And it was that monstrous creature that Bodhi Rook had faced down on the beaches of Scarif.

He was satisfied, but he had no idea if he'd done the right thing.

 _Xino'ai…you've always done foolish things for my sake. Now I fear_ _ **I**_ _may have done something foolish. You always said you would be lost without me. I…I'm afraid it might be the other way around. I thought I was ready, but I'm not. I'm afraid. I'm so afraid. Just…_ _ **please**_ _…_

"Don't leave me," he pleaded softly, grip tightening around his staff, which lay at rest across his lap.

"Chirrut?" Jyn's voice came to him from the far side of the chamber. As she approached him, he picked up the sound of a second set of footsteps right on her heels, too shuffling and whisper-light to be Cassian, but moving too close to be anyone not already familiar with her. Bodhi, then.

"Hello, Jyn," he returned quietly, not shifting from his place before the tank. Really, he was too tired to even turn his head in her direction. "Recovering well?"

"Hardly even scratched me," she said as she sat down beside him, reaching out to take his hand, as he'd once done for her. "How are you holding up?"

"Nothing more than a few burns…thanks to him," Chirrut answered, nodding toward the tank.

"That isn't- so much what I meant. I heard the medics talking. Baze is your husband?"

"Can you think of another reason why a man like him would protect an old blind fool such as myself?" he tried to joke, painfully aware of the absence of his husband's response to such a statement. Baze either would have laughed or fired back with a jibe of his own.

Jyn let out a sound that was caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "It isn't…it's not…I knew you two were close, I just didn't…"

"You do not need to feel bad for not knowing. It is not a state we wear openly, for more reasons than I care to explain. It is enough that it exists between us," he said, gripping Jyn's hand tighter for just a moment.

"Will he…is he going to be all right?" Bodhi finally spoke up.

"The will to survive is strong within him. It always has been. And it has carried him this far. Heh…did you know he was born on a prison ship?"

"No. I didn't know that," Jyn answered.

"I will tell you the story sometime. Only…will you tell me…what does he look like right now?" Chirrut found himself asking.

Both young people were silent for several moments at this. Bodhi was the one to finally break the silence with the quietly murmured response of, "Well…most of his hair's gone."

Chirrut chuckled quietly at this. "I can guarantee you it will have grown back within the week. His hair grows faster than a Wookiee's."

"The burns look like they're healing," Jyn picked up, and the Guardian was pleased to hear the tiny smile in her voice. "I remember when…when you picked me and Cassian up, they looked very bad. New skin's growing in now, though. I guess- the best way to describe it is that it looks like a new baby's skin. Everything's raw and pink," Jyn finished, and the displacement of the air beside him told Chirrut of the way she shrugged helplessly.

The thought of Baze as a newborn did bring a small smile to his face, though. It chased away his own dark phantoms and left him feeling charitable enough to ask, "How is Captain Andor fairing?"

"Still in surgery," the young woman responded, knowing that Chirrut was perfectly aware of the way she'd stiffened upon being asked. "We won't know anything for a few more hours."

"Then I suppose you wouldn't find any harm in joining an old man in his meditations. I don't know if anyone told you this, Bodhi, but you _are_ permitted to sit. Join us," he said, patting the empty spot on his other side.

"Oh, r- right," Bodhi started upon being singled out. He stood uncertainly for several moments before finally taking Chirrut up on his offer, moving out from beside Jyn to come and sit beside him. It wasn't long at all before Chirrut was spinning out the old prayer, seeking the calm that had once come so easily to him.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

Jyn never really joined in with the chanting, but Chirrut could feel her constantly reaching up to grip her mother's pendant. It took Bodhi awhile, but he would occasionally join in with the callback, no doubt remembered from days long ago when the streets of NiJedha resounded with the call and response of the ancient prayer.

"The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force. The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force."

They continued like this long into the night, until both Jyn and Bodhi had fallen asleep around him. Chirrut himself did not sleep, though. Between his bouts of prayer, he continued to guard his husband's rest, ever vigilant. It seemed to him that the world was holding its breath, and he had every intention of being prepared when that tension finally broke.

XxX

The galaxy continued to spin around the Rogue One survivors as they waited for their missing pieces to be returned to them.

Cassian was the first to rejoin them, broken parts cobbled back together, but still as fired with the rebellion as ever. He kept them as informed of the goings on as he was able. First the courier had been captured and the stolen plans lost, then a planet actually destroyed by the Death Star, but Chirrut hadn't needed Cassian to tell him that. Though much less immediate to him than the destruction of NiJedha, the Guardian had still felt the devastation of Alderaan's loss within the fabric of the Living Force. It left him reeling, barely clinging to hope as he waited for Baze to come back to him.

It was only as word was coming to them of Princess Leia's rescue and the recovery of the plans that the med droids were finally releasing Baze from the bacta tank. Chirrut could tell how much their younger companions wanted to be present for Baze's awakening, but he also knew how anxious they were to attend the mission briefing for the Alliance's run on the Death Star.

"Go," he told them as the droids prepared to drain the tank. "Nothing will happen while you're gone."

 _I will keep him safe._

All three of them hesitated, but they ended up agreeing in the end, unable to wait for Baze's emergence for fear of missing the briefing. By the time the droids pulled him from the tank, it was just Chirrut there to greet him.

The infirmary had clean robes on hand, but Chirrut instead draped his own robe around his husband's shoulders, as Baze had done for him so many years ago. As the two of them embraced, never really having expected to do so again in life, Baze rested his head heavily on Chirrut's shoulder. The Guardian knew they hadn't embraced this tightly or this desperately since Tigrin, so he just let the moment be, holding his husband against him, savoring the feel of his breath against his skin.

"Come on, you great hairless bantha," Chirrut said after a time, pressing a kiss to Baze's ear before shifting their positions so that the larger man could lean against him while they walked. "We need to get you lying down. They said you might still be tired."

"Not tired," Baze grumbled as they began the slow trek from the infirmary. "Hungry, maybe."

"That will keep until later, I think. The base is on high alert at the moment. The others are all attending a mission briefing," Chirrut explained.

"Why? What's happening?" Baze pressed.

"You slept through a lot, my dear little monkey lizard, but the short of it is that the Alliance is about to make its run on the Death Star even as we speak."

"That is good," Baze spat out in a voice that was anything but. "NiJedha will have her vengeance."

"Yes," Chirrut agreed, choosing not to mention the fact that the Imperial superweapon was currently en route to their location, and that if the Alliance failed now, they would all die anyway. It wouldn't do to trouble his husband over those thoughts when Chirrut already had such faith in the rebel pilots. The Force was with them. He had no doubt they would see their mission through.

"But they are all right? Jyn and Bodhi? The captain?" Baze asked, already leaning heavier as they moved.

"They are all right. Not many of the recruits made it, but we five came through, and Cassian says he will be able to retrieve the droid's data."

"How?"

"You need me to tell you about data retrieval, Baze? You will have had a great deal of your brain burnt away if you think I know any more about it than you do."

"You _know_ what I meant, Chirrut," Baze scolded affectionately. "How did we make it out of there?"

"Jyn, Cassian, and K-2 were able to reprogram some of the base's other K-2 units. They helped to turn the tide of battle long enough to allow us to escape. But it started before that, I think," Chirrut said pointedly, and he could tell from the way Baze tensed against him that his husband knew exactly what he was talking about, but rather than address his veiled question, Baze turned the conversation in a different direction.

"Do you even know where we're going, old fool? How does a blind man find his way around an unfamiliar base?"

"As a matter of fact, I _do_ know. Cassian told me where to go. You would be the one who was lost if I decided to up and leave you here. Perhaps I should, just to teach you a lesson," Chirrut suggested coyly.

Baze sighed at this, a sound that somehow managed to be both annoyed and affectionate in one go. "No. Don't do that. I would be lost without you, Chirrut Imwe."

"And I without you, Baze Malbus," Chirrut returned, his usual teasing tone slipping for just a moment. But before Baze could call him on it, Chirrut nodded his head to the side. "It wouldn't do much good to teach you a lesson now anyway. We're already here," he said as he walked Baze over to the door in the center of the corridor, taking a moment to feel for the access pad.

When the door slid open, the pair moved into the room as quickly as they were able. The input from the echo-box told Chirrut just where in the small room the bed was located and he helped Baze walk to it. His husband had barely settled before he was pulling Chirrut onto the bed with him, and there was barely enough room for the two of them, but that had never exactly been a stop to them before and Chirrut didn't imagine it would be now. Baze had pressed several slow, tender kisses to his face before asking him, "Have you slept since Scarif? How long has it been?"

"Four days, by the standard count," he returned, pressing a kiss to the corner of Baze's mouth. "I have had my moments."

"Which means, 'No. I'm a foolish old Guardian who won't admit I need sleep like all the other mortals'," Baze ground out.

"That's an interesting translation of the phrase. You will have to refer me to your dictionary of Galactic Basic."

"Chirrut-"

"Don't worry. I _have_ napped. Besides, there's nothing more to worry about tonight. We have time. We have time," he repeated, drawing a hand up to trace the lines of Baze's face, taking the time to feel every hard edge and soft hollow. He lingered longest over the scar beneath his left eye, mind fluttering just on the edges of memories of that night. "For my part, I would know what happened to you on that beach."

Again, he felt his love tense beneath his fingertips. He could feel something dark roiling at Baze's very core and the words for it were tangled horribly between his heart and his throat.

"We are alive, my love. We survived when we should not have. Isn't that enough? What more do you want of me?"

"Baze…tell me," he pleaded quietly.

Baze sighed heavily at the request, pressing their foreheads together before finally answering with, "It was _him._ "

Chirrut knew whom he meant. Of course he did. For them, there was only one _him_. Just the same, he found himself asking, "You…you mean-"

"Niner. He was on Scarif. I don't know how I knew. I just did."

"On the beach?"

"No. The tower. He was there. I _know_ he was."

"And I suppose it's too much to hope that he didn't escape Scarif?"

"He's still out there. He must be. I don't- really know what happened back there, but when I saw you just accept our fate like that…I just couldn't stand the thought of him being alive when we'd both died. Even if it was just one of us…I couldn't let you die. I _couldn't,_ " he hissed, holding Chirrut just that little bit more tightly before smashing their lips together, holding him in that desperate, bruising kiss for several long moments.

Chirrut clung back just as desperately, returning the kiss with no less fervor, but the passionate embrace did not progress any further than that. When they finally separated, they were left simply lying on the bed, Chirrut with his arms wrapped around Baze and Baze cradling Chirrut's face tenderly between his hands. Ultimately, all Chirrut could seem to manage was a small, pained laugh.

"Somehow I have trouble believing our lives were spared for the sake of a revenge vendetta, but it would be strange of me _not_ to believe that all is as the Force wills it. I'd _like_ to say I'm not bothered by the fact that he's still alive-"

"But we'd _both_ be able to taste _that_ lie on your lips," Baze pointed out.

"And I'd _like_ to tell you not to go after him-"

"But you know I can't do that," Baze finished, running a gentle thumb over his cheek.

"Baze…the last one you went after…I nearly lost you," Chirrut choked out, uncertain if it was worse to remember the night the temple fell or all those long months spent without Baze. Really, he was no longer young enough to wonder what he would do if his husband didn't come back this time, but that didn't make the thought any less painful.

"But you didn't. You saved me," Baze reminded him, running those same gentle thumbs in circles over his temples as he kissed his forehead. "Every moment, you save me. You are everything that is sacred to me…and I _cannot_ let that beast go unpunished for what he did. You _know_ that."

"I know it," Chirrut said quietly, taking one of Baze's hands in his and drawing it up to his lips, carefully pressing a kiss to each knuckle, wanting his husband to know how much he appreciated his strong hands. "You will go. I know I cannot stop you, but…for now…can't we just _be alive?_ Can't I just have you for myself a little longer?"

Baze's only response was to kiss him again, cradling him easily against his rejuvenated body.

Neither had the energy to do much more than that, so they simply lay together, kissing and caressing until they fell asleep in each other's arms, little realizing that the Death Star was burning itself out in the atmosphere over their heads, or exactly how close they'd come, yet again, to total destruction.

XxX

 _He's sitting alone on the beaches of Scarif._

 _At first, he only knows this because of the humidity of the air and the damp quality of the sand beneath his fingertips. Sand he's familiar with, but the sand of his home was constantly dry. There was nothing damp or humid about Jedha. This isn't home. It's also not the stale, recycled taste of air that's been processed by a ship's artificial atmosphere scrubbers. It's true air, carrying the scents of mud, salt, and something faintly floral as it moves past him, warm but still balmy._

 _The new information comes to him in bits and pieces. First the darker color of the sand as the beach spreads out before his eyes. Then the intense green haze of Scarif's plant life. It takes him a few moments to identify these things as trees and bushes and undergrowth. His only experience with plants had been the groves in the temple complex, and the groves had always been carefully manicured and managed, nothing like the literal explosion of life he sees here._

 _And opposite the sandy mass of the beach is an even greater expanse, a seemingly endless stretch of shifting color and form, both light and dark by turns. He's so overwhelmed by the sight that it takes him even longer to understand that it's an ocean. The only seas he's ever seen are seas of sand. He knows, of course, that there are entire planets covered by oceans, but being from a desert moon, it still amazes him to see so much water all in one place._

 _For several minutes, each one a moment spinning out into its own little eternity in this dreamlike state, he just takes in the sights, amazed at this new wealth of visual information that will now line his dream worlds side by side with the familiar sights of his home. There is no sign of the Empire in this place, only the shifting tides of the Light and the Dark within the Force as they ebb and flow throughout his mind, pulling apart to become distinct in some places while swirling together in others to create eddies of life and moment. As the meditation continues, the distinction becomes the feel of Light within the jungle at his back, and the Dark that looms large upon the horizon that forms above the ocean ahead of him – the uncertainty of the future._

 _"I have never seen a beach before," he says quietly when the mind that supplied all this imagery makes itself known to him in the figure of a young man in careworn Jedi robes. "Had you thought to make an impression?"_

 _The man chuckles quietly as he sits down beside him. "I'm aware. I thought it might be of use to you to have some clearer sense of the place where your path diverged."_

 _"It isn't- just so Baze can carry out this vengeance of his…is it?" he asks as he leans forward, beginning to trace shapes in the sand with his fingers, enjoying the combined feel of the wet grit against his skin with the ability to actually_ _ **see**_ _what he's creating._

 _"I doubt it, though that is certainly the mechanism that_ _ **spurred**_ _the divergence. From where I stand, you have been saved because there is a boy who is in need of guidance. I can no longer help him, and he needs a teacher to show him the ways of the Force."_

 _"If you will forgive me, my friend, you are_ _ **not**_ _standing. You are sitting," he can't seem to help pointing out, and the Jedi has enough of a sense of humor to laugh at the tiny joke._

 _"Maybe so, but allow an old fool the pleasure of just sitting on a beach after a lifetime of fighting. I've earned this. Besides, it illustrates the point quite well, if I do say so myself. What is my own standing worth if it can change so easily? I don't see why it can't be both things that caused your path to diverge. For your husband, it was the need to see justice done. For you, it will be the desire to nurture a young soul, to equip him with the tools he needs to hold back the Darkness."_

 _"I am no Jedi, my friend, no Force-user. I only feel its presence and follow where it leads. Forgive me, but it seems unlike you Jedi to acknowledge any way but your own. What help would I be to a boy wishing to be a Jedi?" he asks, stopping to admire his work – his and Baze's names, written out in beautiful Jedhan script and joined by the Mark of the Xino'ai. Stars, but it's been so long since he's seen something written out._

 _"We Jedi? We Jedi who were completely wiped out by an enemy we were arrogant enough not to see coming? It seems to me it would be better for the next generation to broaden their horizons, to widen their point of view and not fall prey to outdated modes of thinking. It will serve Luke well, I think, to see more than just the ways of the Jedi. You may not be a Jedi, Chirrut Imwe, but you know the Force. That is all he needs. That and…family," the master says, voice breaking off at the end. It seems to Chirrut that while the man's been talking, he's been aging right before his eyes._

 _"Family? Are you_ _ **sure**_ _you're a Jedi?" he can't quite help teasing._

 _"I have seen the Jedi Code succeed…and I have seen it fail. I will not see it fail Luke where it failed his father."_

 _With that, the Jedi reaches across and rests a hand on his shoulder and Chirrut sees what his life has been – Obi-Wan Kenobi – his power, his pride, his failings, the mistakes he's made, their culmination in a lost student and brother, a galaxy fallen, and two children without a home. Chirrut sighs heavily, offering up a weary smile as he lives everything with him._

 _"I am an interesting choice to act as your confessor, Kenobi, given what I endured when the Republic fell. Would you really leave this Last Hope of yours in the hands of such a destroyed creature as this?" he asks, slowly climbing to his feet._

 _"You are not destroyed," the old man says, looking up at him from where he still sits on the sand. "Far from it. That which was once broken can be remade stronger than ever it was before. Who better to teach such a lesson? You are not obligated to take on this challenge, Guardian Imwe, but know that the galaxy can turn upon the mercy of a single being. You ought to remember that going forward," he says, shifting up onto his knees so that he's kneeling before Chirrut. The monk shakes his head, letting a touch more humor into his smile._

 _"You don't need to beg, you know. I would never turn away from a student in need of a teacher. I just can't be sure if this is as the Force wills or as_ _ **you**_ _will." Really, he's only been undeniably certain of the difference four times in his life, and he's not yet sure if this is going to be the fifth._

 _"Well, I will let you be the judge of that when you meet Luke Skywalker for yourself. Don't let_ _ **me**_ _influence you," the old Jedi says with a shrug, though he remains on his knees. As he fades away, a smile – a_ _ **true**_ _smile – moves across his face. "Whatever the case may be, I know Anakin's son is in good hands."_

 _Then he's gone and Chirrut finds himself alone on the beach. Already the sky's growing darker overhead and the wind is whipping harshly up from the ocean, stirring the water up into white-capped waves and billowing the Guardian's robes fiercely about his compact frame._

 _Swallowing heavily, Chirrut looks down at the sand to try and make out the words he traced out earlier, but he can't read them anymore. The lines are twisting away from him like smoke curling away from a flame. This is no longer Obi-Wan communing with him through the Force. This is his own mind._

 _His own nightmare._

 _The darkness is encroaching faster now, swallowing up the sky, the horizon, the ocean. Soon even the beach itself is beginning to crumble and break off, quickly falling away into the darkness. Briefly, he thinks about running, but really, where's he going to go? Everything is disappearing into the dark – just like it always has. So he waits patiently upon the sand until it falls from beneath him, sending him tumbling into the familiar abyss._

 _Strangely, this drop isn't like falling through air. It's more like being plunged into water, or being submerged in bacta. Either way, he's robbed of his sense of up from down and there's nowhere he can go._

 _He knows it's coming, but that doesn't stop his blood from turning to ice in his veins when it finally does._

 _The voice at his ear…the whisper in the dark…_

 _"You are strong, Guardian…but we will_ _ **break**_ _you."_

 _There is no face for this darkest of terrors. There never has been – only hands on his body, moving past every defense and exploiting_ _ **every**_ _weakness, stripping away each layer of strength to reveal the raw, naked soul inside._

 _The memory of the other five has faded with time, the ghost of pain haunting much less down through the years. What has never faded or softened is his own feeling of self-disgust – the revulsion that crawls just beneath his skin that one man can tear through him so easily. Niner's voice has never faded._

 _"What good are you to the galaxy…if someone like_ _ **me**_ _can break you so easily?" that voice hisses in his ear as the hands pin him down. "What good will you be against the_ _ **Empire**_ _? In the end, we will always destroy you – destroy_ _ **him.**_ _"_

 _ **The Force is with me and I am with the Force…and I fear nothing. I fear nothing. I fear nothing.**_ _ **I fear nothing!**_

 _"Nothing, Chirrut?" Niner asks in that gentle, condescending tone, lips tracing along Chirrut's neck. "I think we both know that's not_ _ **quite**_ _true. There is_ _ **one**_ _thing you fear, and it isn't_ _ **me**_ _– is it. It's what I've_ _ **done**_ _that you fear – what I've destroyed. You cannot escape it. You're afraid I really_ _ **might**_ _have destroyed what you are, and nothing you do can ever mend that."_

 _"That…it's not true," he chokes the words out, again knowing what's coming, but powerless to stop it._

 _"Oh, no? Poor, poor Chirrut. You've fought for such a long time, but now your skills won't save you," Niner half-croons, echoing the words from that night as his hands trace all over Chirrut's body. "What will you do? Will you pray to your Force…even though you_ _ **know**_ _it won't answer?"_

 _The words that broke him._

" _NOOOO!_ "

Baze was jolted awake by the sound of Chirrut screaming.

Most people probably would've reacted to being woken by their husband's screams by reaching for a weapon, _any_ weapon, but Baze knew better. No enemy of flesh and blood could cause his Beloved to cry out like that. There was only one thing in all the galaxy that could make Chirrut scream, and Baze couldn't protect him from it. Not really. All he could do was cradle Chirrut tightly in his arms, holding him close as the horrors of his dream world slowly unraveled around him.

"It's all right. It's all right. It's over now," he insisted through the last of Chirrut's cries, helping him find his way out of the nightmare. "I'm here. I'm here."

Chirrut didn't say anything this time. He just clung to Baze. Neither of them even looked up at the sound of someone practically smashing the security override on their door. The moment it slid open, Jyn, Cassian, and Bodhi all spilled into the room, each on the lookout for some sort of danger.

"What happened?" Cassian demanded, eyes still darting around the space, clearly surprised not to find an assassin lurking.

" _Nothing_ happened," Baze growled quietly, sadly. "Nothing happened today, at least. It was only a nightmare."

"A- about Scarif?" Bodhi asked, something clearly unsettled in his expression that Baze knew he would need to ask him about later.

"No. Believe it or not, this is not the first time we've tangled with the Empire," he barely kept himself from snapping at their three new companions, dividing his attention between them and his husband.

"We thought- you'd been attacked," Jyn admitted haltingly, and much as Baze hated to acknowledge it, the vulnerability in her voice struck something in him.

"It's okay," Chirrut whispered to him, face still buried in his chest, his death grip on Baze lessening by inches. "They should know."

"You are sure?" Baze whispered into his husband's hair as he ran his hands soothingly up and down his back. For all they had been through together in the past week, they didn't _know_ these three young people. Not really. And yet…Chirrut had always seemed to know better than he ever had who was trustworthy.

"Yes. For better or worse…our fates have been tied together. They may know. Tell them," Chirrut finished quietly. He was no longer clinging to Baze, but he made no move to disentangle himself from the larger man's embrace. So, holding his husband easily against his chest, Baze began to give voice to their lives as he never had before.

"Do any of you know…how _long_ Jedha was under Imperial occupation?"

"Nearly- as long as the Empire has existed," Bodhi was the one to supply, voice growing distant as he remembered. Jyn and Cassian both looked back at him in surprise when he continued. "I was six years old. I…barely remember a time before the occupation."

Baze nodded. "Not that the Empire _needs_ an excuse to wantonly destroy, but they had it in the Guardians. Chirrut and I were present when the order to kill the Jedi went out. We attempted to protect the Jedi commander serving on Jedha, but we failed. Chirrut lost his sight that night and our order was declared a band of traitors for daring to protect a Jedi. It brought them down on us without warning…without mercy. They besieged our home for months," he recounted.

"I remember," Bodhi said quietly when Baze trailed off, almost as if he were amazed that he did. "Mama was so worried. My cousin was a Guardian in those days."

Baze gave a small laugh at this. So _that_ was the answer. "Asana Rook."

At this, Bodhi's eyes widened. "You- you _knew_ her?"

"Yes. She was one of the defenders who stood on the outer wall with me on the final night of the siege. She never ran. She was a good woman. Brave. She was helping the last of the injured to escape the temple that night. I drew the stormtroopers off to allow them time to escape with the rebel cell that had been helping us. Chirrut and I were captured."

Cassian inhaled sharply at this and when Baze looked to him, he could see the small pinprick of horror in the captain's dark eyes. Clearly, he was no stranger to the efficacy of Imperial interrogation. "What happened?" the young spy asked.

"They wanted to know where the insurgents were hiding. They threatened to…to _rape_ Chirrut in front of me…if we did not give them what they demanded," he said, barely able to tear the word from his throat, even after all this time. But he could not have them mistake his meaning here. It didn't help to just say that their enemies had threatened to hurt his husband. Their companions needed to understand the full meaning of what had happened to them. He didn't look them in the eye when he spoke, but he could feel the realization and the pity within them, especially when Jyn spoke up.

"Then…what _did_ happen?"

"We did not give in to them," he answered simply, voice a quiet growl in his throat as Chirrut's grip on him briefly tightened. No doubt he could feel _exactly_ what it was they were all feeling at Baze's words.

For a long while, no one seemed to know what to say. Baze continued to hold Chirrut while the other three stood in shocked silence. Baze knew he would have to be the one to bring it all full circle, but he didn't track how long that silence stretched before he spoke again.

"We protected them, but we did not remain with the rebellion in those days. I did not want to put Chirrut through that after what he'd already been through. He still wakes in the night sometimes… _screaming_. It hadn't happened for a few years- before this, but with everything that's happened, well…" That thought he let hang, thinking the meaning to be quite plain. Cassian was the one to speak up after the silence had gone on too long the second time around.

"It doesn't seem…quite enough…to say we're sorry for what happened to you."

Chirrut gave a small, pained laugh against Baze's chest before raising his head. "It doesn't, does it. But I made my choice then and I stand by it now. You don't need to grieve for that. But…you all were celebrating, weren't you. You should return to your revelry. Don't worry about me."

All three young rebels looked a little shocked by the statement, as if they'd even be able to _consider_ such a thing after hearing about what had happened. Baze was left wondering, though.

"Celebrating?" he asked.

"Yes. We were just coming to tell you," Cassian started.

"They did it," Jyn put in, a tired smile moving across her face. "The Alliance squadrons, they- they flew against the Death Star. It was just like my father said. They destroyed it. It's gone. It's _gone._ "

"That is good news," Chirrut said, some of the tension easing from him as he settled a little more easily in Baze's embrace. "Skywalker."

"What?" Baze asked, looking down at him.

"The pilot who fired the shot, the one who destroyed the Death Star…his name is Skywalker," he said, another of his strange _knowing_ little smiles taking up residence about the corners of his mouth.

"That's right," Bodhi said, tilting his head sideways curiously as he looked at them. "How did you know that?"

"The Force is strong with him," was all the answer Chirrut gave before giving a more full-bodied laugh as he sat up in bed. "Méiyǒu, méiyǒu, young ones. Return to your celebration. Leave these old men be for a night. We will do our own celebrating, and I cannot imagine you will want to be present for it," he teased.

Bodhi immediately turned bright red, trying to babble out several things at once before giving up and retreating backward out of the small room. Cassian blushed only mildly, shrugging as he half-smiled, half-grimaced. Jyn laughed out loud, offering the pair a wink and a thumb's up. "Enjoy," she said before joining hands with Cassian and heading out of the room with him, being sure to seal the door behind them.

Baze chuckled as Chirrut rolled him onto his back, shifting to straddle him. "I get the feeling they'll be doing some _celebrating_ of their own before the night is over," he said, feeling the familiar heat flare in his belly when his husband splayed his fingers along the skin just above his groin. "But…how _did_ you know about the pilot?" he asked against his better judgment, and of course, Chirrut laughed in response.

"Allow an old fortuneteller _some_ secrets. But I surely hope, my dear, that you are prepared to be a teacher again. It seems we are not finished raising little ones just yet."

Baze rolled his eyes as Chirrut leaned down to kiss him. He had no idea what the man was talking about, but their years together had taught him that things would begin to sort themselves out eventually. When Chirrut broke the kiss, his lips twitched into a smile against Baze's. Then he gently began to push the robes from Baze's shoulders.

"This is a joyous night. Come. Make love to me, Xino'ai. There will be time enough for the rest of the galaxy later."

Baze was only too happy to comply with his husband's wishes.

XxX

(A/N) So apparently I keep lying to myself about what the last chapter of this story is going to be. I could have sworn this one was going to be the end of it, but it looks like we need at least _one more_ chapter to wrap things up.


	5. Beside You

(A/N) Wow, this last chapter took way too long to finish. I am so sorry. For anyone who's still reading, I certainly hope you enjoy it. One other note I don't think I've mentioned before is the story's title. It comes from the song 'Beside You' by Marianas Trench. So if you've never heard it, you should definitely give it a listen. Goes nicely with the story.

 **If Your Heart Wears Thin (I Will Hold You Up)**

 _Chapter 5: Beside You_

If Luke Skywalker were completely honest with himself, he would have to say that the reality of the situation hadn't really hit him by the time the medal ceremony came around. Not just the reality of his status as a hero of the Alliance, but the reality of…any of it.

In hardly more than three days, he'd learned of the Force, that his father had been a Jedi Knight, been orphaned for the second time in his life, finally escaped the dust ball of a planet he'd spent his life on, found a mentor and promptly lost him, learned it was possible for a single space station to destroy an entire planet, actually _destroyed_ said space station with the help of a mystical energy field that he'd only concretely known about for three days, and on top of even that, he'd lost his best friend in the battle.

And now they wanted to give him a medal for all that.

Honestly, a large chunk of his brain was expecting to wake up in his room back on the farm, with his uncle ragging on him to get up before the morning was completely wasted. But then he remembered – Uncle Owen was never going to rag on him for anything ever again. Aunt Beru was never going to slip in and gently shake him awake before his uncle _really_ got impatient. And he was never going into Anchorhead to catch up with Biggs again. He was never going to get to tell him all the stories he'd planned on telling him when they _both_ came back from the fight with the Death Star – alive.

Luke could feel the smile freeze on his face as Leia placed the medal around his neck. When she saw the slight change in his expression, her own eyebrows knit together briefly, silently asking him if he was all right. Luke swallowed painfully, but offered the princess a single small nod, making sure his smile was still on as they all turned to be presented to the gathering hall. All at once, it all descended on him.

 _They should be here. They should all_ _ **still be here.**_

Luke continued to smile for everyone else, but inside, something was splintering. He was relieved to think that the ceremony was likely over and that they'd soon be dismissed, but was actually disappointed when Mon Mothma stepped forward from the lineup of the Alliance leadership.

"My friends," she called out to gather everyone's attention. "It is not my intent to keep you long, as there is still much to be done to evacuate the base, so I will be brief. I think it prudent this day not only to give thanks to our living heroes, the brave men and women who fought to bring down the Death Star," she began, offering a sweeping gesture to indicate not just Luke, Han, and Chewie, but the three others who'd been given medals along with them – two men and one woman, the leaders of the Rogue One team. "But also to take a small moment to remember our _fallen_ heroes – the pilots who perished above the Death Star…and the soldiers who gave their lives on the beaches of Scarif…and I say small moment because, in truth, nothing any of us can say can measure up to the sacrifices they have made. Nothing else can be measured beside giving one's life in the name of one's beliefs. All we can ever do to uphold their brave deeds is to ensure that those sacrifices were not made in vain. All I ask is that we remember those who have fallen as we take up their fight against tyranny. Remember what they fought for, what _you_ fight for, _who_ you fight for, and you will never lose sight of why this cause is so important," she said, briefly glancing back at the Rogue One crew before turning back to the group at large. "So carry the triumph of this day with you, but never forget who it was that made it possible."

Luke imagined the chancellor's words would have received a warm reception, but he didn't really take time to see how anyone else reacted. All he could seem to think about was Aunt Beru bandaging his scraped palms when he was five…racing Biggs through Beggar's Canyon just a few years ago – the sound of their wild whoops echoing off the rocks and the wind whipping through his hair…the warm, longing look in Ben's eyes as he recounted his time with Anakin Skywalker…

 _Remember what they fought for…what_ _ **you**_ _fight for…_ _ **who**_ _you fight for…_

Swallowing heavily, Luke pushed the memories away. He didn't want to forget them. Of _course_ he didn't. But if he thought about them now, he was afraid he might be completely overwhelmed, that he might break down here in front of everyone. When he'd managed to master himself and look up again, it was to find that people were beginning to disperse, and that his friends had moved to surround him. Threepio, Artoo, Han, Chewie, Leia…

"Hangin' in there, kid?" Han asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"I…I'll be okay," Luke managed to make himself answer as he looked around at all of them, drawing in a shuddered breath. Chewie gave a quiet growl and Artoo whistled in a worried tone. Leia reached out a hand to rest on his arm.

"Are you sure?"

Luke shook his head as he offered up a grateful smile. "Really. I'm fine. Do…do you know them?" he asked the princess as he nodded in the direction of the Rogue One crew, trying to shift the focus away from himself.

Leia's expression twisted in a way that said she was completely aware of what he'd tried to do, but rather than call him on it, she allowed it, turning to look at the other three rebels. "I know Captain Andor, but I haven't formally met Erso or Rook yet."

"Think we could introduce ourselves?"

Leia shook her head, but smiled nonetheless. "While you don't seem to have any trouble making friends, I suppose if you really need the excuse…" she started, not finishing the sentence before leading the way across the gap that had formed between the two groups. When she approached Captain Andor, he quickly straightened up, offering her a salute.

"Your Highness."

"The ceremony's over, Cass. You can relax," she jibed at him, poking his side to coax him out of the stiff pose. The captain twitched away from the small jab, quickly clamping down on a sound that may or may not have been a laugh.

"Oh?" the woman started in interest as she looked her companion over with a fresh eye. "Ticklish are we, Captain? I might use that later."

" _Jyn,_ " the captain hissed, the sudden blush that stained his cheeks implying a lot more than any of their words had. The other man chuckled quietly as he looked away from them. Leia watched all of this with an interested expression of her own.

"Something I should know, Cassian?"

"Yes," Jyn started, laying a hand on Cassian's shoulder as if staking a claim. "If you didn't know it already, you should know that the captain is an unsurpassed lover."

" _Stars,_ Jyn," Cassian near squeaked, his face going completely red as Jyn's smirk deepened. Leia actually laughed at the display.

"Trust me, Jyn, you won't be getting any challenge to your claim from me. Cassian and I have known each other since we were children. He's like a big brother to me. But I suppose congratulations are in order. You've successfully snared the most eligible bachelor in the Alliance."

"Guess that title's gonna have to go to someone else now," Han said with a casual shrug.

Leia raised a dubious eyebrow at the statement. "Sure. And maybe the Emperor will retire tomorrow and make reparations for every crime he's committed over the past three decades."

Han looked slightly put out by the jibe, but rather than take the bait, he just shrugged again. "Hey, it could happen."

"And there's the Solo I know. Always deluding himself," Jyn said with a shake of her head, immediately drawing the attention of Leia and Cassian.

"You two know each other?" they asked almost in sync.

Once again, all Han could seem to do was shrug. "Humans don't exactly last long in the seedier businesses. We _all_ know each other."

Chewie nodded, growling for a few minutes before moving forward to pull Jyn into a tight hug. Han rolled his eyes. "Oh, you _would_ bring _that_ up."

"Hey, Chewbacca. Glad to see you're still in one piece," Jyn greeted, clearly fighting to breathe through the Wookiee's strong grip. "Sorry I didn't catch you earlier, but you disappeared too fast."

Chewie trilled a few more minutes before releasing Jyn, taking a moment to ruffle her hair before moving back to Han's side.

"I guess that'll make this go a little faster. Everyone, this is Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso. They're the ones who actually retrieved the Death Star plans. This is Bodhi Rook, the former Imperial who brought us the intel about the Death Star. He also flew the mission to Scarif," Leia introduced.

"You're a pilot?" Luke asked the other man, speaking for the first time. Bodhi Rook glanced shyly up at him, dark eyes shining as the corners of his mouth turned up hesitantly.

"Sometimes. I…I try to be," he said, clearly struggling to maintain eye contact. He shrugged helplessly, smiling as he closed his eyes. Luke couldn't really explain it, but he felt some long held tension in him ease at that expression. That strange sense of _knowing_ he'd always had, what Ben had told him was the Force, something within it shifted as he looked at Bodhi Rook. Like a string being plucked, the vibrations moved throughout his own awareness and back into the universe as a strange harmony he knew only he could hear. Ben might have heard it, too, might have been able to explain what it was he was feeling, but Ben wasn't here anymore. So he would just have to work it out for himself. When Bodhi opened his eyes again, Luke offered his hand for the other pilot to shake.

"Hi. I'm-"

"Luke Skywalker?" Bodhi offered up before he could finish, taking the offered hand and pumping it briefly. "Yes, I- know who you are. You- destroyed it. _You_ brought down the Death Star."

Luke wasn't completely certain what he felt from Bodhi in that moment. It was a strange mix of sadness, guilt, gratitude, relief, and utter exhaustion. For some reason, Luke found himself latching onto the guilt. What in the _galaxy_ did this man have to feel guilty over? He'd been brave enough to turn his back on the _Empire._ A lesser man would've just kept his head down and never taken the kind of stand Bodhi Rook had taken. In that moment, Luke Skywalker didn't think he would ever meet somebody braver, and it burned at him to think that Bodhi couldn't seem to see that in himself.

"Only because of what _you_ did. You made it all possible. None of us would be here right now without you," Luke insisted, reaching forward to place a firm hand on the other pilot's shoulder.

"Thank you," Jyn said. "We keep telling him that, but he won't listen to us. Maybe he'll listen to the hero of the hour."

Luke felt his cheeks heat up in a blush, as they'd done about a hundred times since he'd climbed out of the cockpit of his X-wing. "I'm no hero. I don't think I ever actually believed I'd die up there, but _you_ guys…you went down to Scarif _knowing_ you weren't coming back. I don't know what's more heroic than that. Are you three…the only ones who _did_ come back?" he found himself asking, only realizing how out of line it might have been after the words were spoken.

Cassian shook his head. "A handful of the fighters made it out. We were the only ones well enough to stand for the ceremony. Actually…there's…one of them now," the captain's voice trailed off slightly as his attention was drawn to the far side of the chamber. Luke followed his gaze to see an older man standing against the wall. He was dressed in a simple black robe and his head had recently been shaved. His stern face was framed by a pair of fairly large ears. He mostly seemed to be keeping his arms folded across his chest, but Luke noticed the way his hands seemed to twitch every couple moments, almost as if he were reminding himself not to reach for something.

"Baze!" Jyn greeted with a wave, quickly leading the charge across the hall toward the older man. The others couldn't do much but follow after her. When they reached the man called Baze, Jyn threw her arms around him. He didn't smile, not exactly, but his expression did appear to soften a little before he pulled back from Jyn to look down at her.

"Apparently you're some sort of hero, little sister."

Jyn shook her head. "Don't give me that. Are you all right to be up? Chirrut said you might still be tired. He wasn't going to leave your side for anything."

Baze snorted. "If he said anything of the kind, the old fool was projecting. He is the tired one. It was just that neither of us wanted to stand on so much ceremony. I'm only here now because Chirrut wanted to speak to this one," he said, nodding at Luke.

"Me?" Luke asked uncertainly. Baze's only response was a nod. "Why? Who's Chirrut?"

"Another one of Rogue One's survivors. He is one of us," Cassian was the one to finally answer.

"Well? Are you coming or not, boy?" Baze asked as he moved to head out of the hall. "There is not a lot of time before we must all be off world."

For a moment, Luke glanced helplessly between his new friends and Baze, not really sure what it was he should do. In the end, it was Bodhi's encouraging smile that convinced him to follow.

"I'll catch up with you guys later," he said before following after Baze. They'd passed through several passageways before he'd managed to think of a question to put to the taciturn man a few paces ahead of him. "So you're…with the Alliance?"

"Not so much, no," he answered without looking back, giving a minute shake of his head. "As in all things, the blind lead the blind. I was just the fool who followed."

Having no idea what _any_ of that meant, Luke decided not to press conversation with the man. Baze clearly wasn't much of a talker. Really, there probably wasn't even much point to asking who this Chirrut was. He was going to find out soon enough, wasn't he?

Baze finally came to a stop outside a nondescript door, no different from any of the other rebel quarters. Keying in the access code, he stood to the side and waved Luke through, his expression completely unreadable. Luke couldn't even get a sense of what he was feeling. Hesitating for several moments, he finally just swallowed and entered.

The glow rod that would've normally lit the room had been dimmed to a very pale blue glow, and what little light entered from the corridor was soon cut off when Baze entered the room behind him and closed the door. The space was _very_ sparsely furnished, nothing more than a slightly larger bed and two storage units, and it was occupied by one other man, who sat at the far end of the room with his legs folded and his hands resting easily on his knees. If Luke had to guess, he'd say that his robes were those of some religious order. His eyes were closed and he was deep in meditation, mumbling some sort of mantra, and it was only when Luke finally managed to understand the exact _words_ he was chanting that his interest was really piqued.

"I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me."

"Chirrut?" he asked quietly, afraid of interrupting the man.

"Hello, young Skywalker," he returned just as quietly.

"You know me?"

"Oh, yes. It's very hard _not_ to hear the name 'Luke Skywalker' around the base today. You have made quite the name for yourself, young one."

"Who are you?"

"Who am I?" Chirrut repeated, eyes remaining closed all the while. "Unless my ears fail me as well, you know my name already."

"That's not- really what I-"

The older man just chuckled at his confusion. "Indulge an old man his games, young one. You will find that with a little patience, all things come in time."

"Then…why did you want to speak to me?"

"Is there someone in the galaxy who _wouldn't_ want to speak with you right now? As either hero or scourge? You will be in great demand in the coming days, Luke Skywalker. You had best get used to the notion." Throughout all of this, the man had kept his eyes shut.

Luke felt a spike of irritation flare up beneath his curiosity. He was fast losing his patience with the older man's word games. "Look, no offense, but there's actually a lot of work to get done today, so if-"

"Let me see the lightsaber," Chirrut demanded quite suddenly, all sense of mirth dropping from his voice as he held out his hand.

More than a little shocked, Luke took a step back. "How- how do you know I have a lightsaber?"

"Well, one would be rather foolish to leave such a powerful weapon just lying about, wouldn't he," Chirrut pointed out, continuing to hold out his hand expectantly.

"For stars' sake, Chirrut, would you just talk plain with the boy?" Baze grumbled from somewhere behind him.

"Mm…no," he chirped after a moment of thought, grinning as he tilted his head to the side. "If everything is given to him, then he learns nothing. Now, the lightsaber, if you please, young one," he finished, eyes remaining infuriatingly closed as he gestured with his fingers.

Now feeling nervous, Luke stared at the man's outstretched hand for several moments before turning back to look at Baze, who just raised both hairless eyebrows, a look of expectancy about his own face.

"May as well get on with it, boy. You'll get nothing else from him until you do."

Swallowing heavily, Luke let out a huff of breath before turning back to face Chirrut. When he finally unhooked the antique weapon from his belt and placed it in the older man's hand, he spoke in a voice that sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

"It…belonged to my father."

Chirrut said nothing to this. For several minutes, he just turned the saber hilt over and over in his hands, fingers taking in every single detail of the craftsmanship. Then he held the blade end of the weapon up to his face. Had his eyes been open, he would've been looking at its interior, but they were _still_ closed. When he flipped the blade end in Luke's direction to inspect the base, Baze grunted out, "Mind where you aim that thing. You'll take his hand off."

Chirrut shook his head as he continued his inspection, chuckling at something Luke couldn't understand. But as his hands continued to traverse the composite surface, his expression grew more somber. When he finally spoke again, it was with a heavy voice.

"It has seen much…this blade. Peace and war…joy and sorrow…companionship and loneliness…trust and betrayal…love…and heartbreak."

At this very last pronouncement, Chirrut ignited the lightsaber, the blade shooting to life right next to his face. Luke actually flinched but Chirrut remained perfectly composed, his eyes finally blinking lazily open, and in the blue glow cast by the humming blade, Luke could see what he hadn't before.

"Oh. You're-"

"Don't say it," Baze begged.

"-blind," he finished before he could stop himself. Chirrut's face immediately twisted into a look of shock.

"Are you sure? I- I could see just fine this morning. It can't be true. You know what, I want a second opinion. Baze?"

"Chirrut," Baze returned in mild annoyance.

"Say it isn't so. Tell me the young one is wrong. I can't really be blind, can I?"

"Afraid it's true, old fool. But you've only been blind for the last nineteen _years._ I can see where you might make the mistake," Baze returned as he moved to stand at Chirrut's side, a look of fond exasperation on his face. And for a moment, as he looked down at the blind man, Luke got the same sort of feeling he'd always gotten from his aunt and uncle when they'd been arguing over something they both _knew_ wasn't really important – that they could go on arguing forever so long as they could just _be_ with one another – and all at once, he understood that he was looking at two men who were _far_ more than just friends.

"Who _are_ you?" he tried to ask again.

"My name is Chirrut Imwe," he answered, tone much more serious this time. "And I am a Guardian of the Whills."

"What does- that mean?"

Chirrut sighed as he deactivated the lightsaber, handing it back to Luke. "Unfortunately, the site our order was sworn to protect no longer exists. It was destroyed…by the very weapon _you_ have destroyed. But among other things, the Guardians were followers of the Force."

"You know the Force?" Luke pressed, dropping to one knee before the older man.

"I do, and I can see that you are strong with it, but the path has only just begun to be illuminated before you. I am no Jedi," Chirrut said in response to the question he hadn't asked. "I cannot teach you _their_ ways, but I _can_ show you the ways of the Force. More than just the Jedi have followed its way in this galaxy, after all."

"You can help me learn?" Luke asked, already feeling a twinge of guilt for his earlier irritation. This was so much more than he'd dared to hope for at this point. Without Ben, he'd been lost, didn't know if he'd ever be able to be like his father, but with Chirrut he might at least have a starting point.

"To a degree. Whether what I am able to impart is what you ultimately seek, who could say? But I will help in any way I can."

"Then…what do I need to do?" he asked, keeping perfectly still, waiting for whatever words the old man might speak next.

But Chirrut just grinned as he leaned forward to poke Luke's chest, forcing him to release a breath he hadn't been fully aware he was holding. "Breathe, for a start, young one. You are wound tighter than a tuft of sebrinh wool. I can see that you are the sort who focuses on the troubles of others in order to avoid focusing on your own. While that will be good for your new friends, it will not much help you. I would advise that you take the time to grieve for what you have lost before seeking out something new."

"I…" Luke started, but found himself unable to finish, eyes dropping to the floor. Really, what _could_ he say to that?

"You don't _need_ to say anything," Chirrut responded to yet another question he hadn't asked aloud. "Just take your time. Reflect on what was before you rejoin with what is. Be with your friends. Fight for your Alliance. But when next you come to me, I would have it be because you are _ready,_ and _not_ because there are things you would rather forget by losing yourself in training."

Luke wanted to argue that he _was_ ready, that this was what he wanted, but something in the old master's sightless expression brooked no argument, and it wasn't anything condescending, like one might expect from someone older trying to make someone younger understand something. It was sympathy in the older man's face. Chirrut recognized the pain within him, and he was telling him plainly that the only way out was through, not around.

"All right," Luke returned quietly, bowing his head to Chirrut before getting back to his feet. "I'll- take the time to think about what you've said."

"Good," the old Guardian said with a nod of his own head. "May the Force be with you, young Skywalker."

"And with you," Luke returned, beginning to fall more into his own thoughts as he headed out of the room. He wasn't completely certain what it was that Chirrut Imwe wanted from him. All he could really gather was that they'd experienced a moment of shared loss. He didn't know how the man meant for him to work through it. Whatever the case, there was still a lot to do. He'd take the time to think more about it _after_ the evacuation was complete.

XxX

 _"You are strong, Guardian…"_

 _ **"Much anger in him…like his father."**_

 _"…but we will_ _ **break**_ _you."_

 _ **"I won't fail you. I'm not afraid."**_

 _"Chirrut…how will I live?"_

 _ **"Its energy surrounds us…and binds us."**_

 _"If you can trust nothing else…trust_ _ **us.**_ _No matter what they do, they_ _ **cannot**_ _destroy what we really are."_

 _ **"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."**_

 _"I…I am with you."_

 _ **"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future."**_

 _Forgive me, Beloved. Please forgive me._

 _ **"I love you."**_

 _"This pain…do you feel this pain?"_

 _ **"I know."**_

 _"Don't make me hurt you."_

 _ **"The Force is with you, young Skywalker…but you are not a Jedi yet."**_

 _"Because you seemed to think there was somewhere you could go I couldn't follow."_

 _ **"Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear. Now, release your anger. Only your**_ _ **hatred**_ _ **can destroy me."**_

 _"This is proof of your love for Baze. Cruel proof, isn't it."_

 _ **"I can sense his living flame within your heart. Is this**_ _ **love**_ _ **, young Skywalker? Perhaps I should have chosen a more sensitive pressure point in calling you to me."**_

 _"It's going to be all right. I'm going to protect you…_ _ **always.**_ _I promise. Please- don't cry."_

 _ **"STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"**_

 _"All is…as the Force wills it."_

 _ **"There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you."**_

 _"_ _ **I don't believe that!**_ _I_ _ **can't.**_ _"_

 _ **"I'LL NEVER JOIN YOU!"**_

 _"They have taken everything else. I will not let them take_ _ **you**_ _away from me."_

 _ **"If you only knew the power of the Dark Side."**_

 _"Let nothing living doubt how I love you."_

 _ **"No.**_ _ **I**_ _ **am your father."**_

 _"You saved me. Every moment, you save me."_

 _ **"Search your feelings. You**_ _ **know**_ _ **it to be true."**_

 _"Poor Chirrut. You've fought for such a long time, but now your skills won't save you. What will you do? Will you pray to your Force…even though you_ _ **know**_ _it won't answer?"_

 _ **"Ben…why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me?"**_

 **** _"You won't kill me, Baze Malbus. You_ _ **can't!**_ _"_

 _ **"Then my father is**_ _ **truly**_ _ **dead."**_

 _"You've given up your own life and changed_ _ **nothing.**_ _That is the fate of_ _ **all**_ _rebellions."_

 _ **"You already- have…Luke. You were right. You were right about me."**_

 _"_ _ **NOOOO!**_ _"_

 _ **"**_ _ **NOOO!**_ _ **NO!"**_

Chirrut snapped awake from the nightmare with a sharp gasp. For several moments, he lay still, struggling to collect his thoughts.

He was not on Jedha. He hadn't been for several years now. That place that was the seed of so many dreams and nightmares was nothing more than a handful of scattered atoms. He was not that helpless victim anymore. But neither was he a princess or a scoundrel suddenly faced with the prospect of losing his love, nor a young man yearning to become a Jedi, but suddenly faced with the horror of his making.

He needed quite a few moments to untangle the threads of his nightmares.

His dreams since Luke's confrontation with Vader had been dark. Being aware of the truths the young padawan had had to face was entirely different from going through the turmoil _with_ him. And if anything, Luke had been angrier with _him_ than with Obi-Wan or Yoda, for having known and taught him for three years without saying anything about what he knew. Lately, Chirrut had often found himself wondering how the boy would react when he learned that the old Guardian had known he and Leia were unknowing siblings, but that really was just too much to consider along with every other tension running through this strange family of theirs.

Luke's troubles and Bodhi's worry for him, Leia's desperation to get Han back, Jyn's desire to help out her old friend, and Cassian's need to help his little sister figure. He was even certain he'd picked up some horrific snatch of dream experience from Han himself, trapped in that indeterminate space between moments, struggling to go on existing, even though logic dictated that he _didn't._ Sometimes it was a wonder to Chirrut that he didn't lose himself completely in the paths he walked in dreams.

But he never did. He always managed to come back – back to the small living quarters he shared with Baze aboard _Home One_ , to the small bed that allowed them to curl impossibly close. Crossing that smallest of distances with searching hands, he tangled his fingertips lightly in his husband's braided hair, reassuring himself of the other man's living presence. Satisfied, he leaned forward to press a tender kiss to Baze's forehead.

He hadn't meant to wake him with the kiss, but he felt his husband wake with the slight press of skin just the same. Really it had been wishful thinking to believe he might stay asleep.

"When did your kisses become so boring, old fool?" Baze grumbled, still sleepy but fully aware, the habit of an old warrior. The position of his eyelids against Chirrut's skin told the blind Guardian that his eyes were still closed. "If I'm to have no sleep, you may as well wake me properly."

"You've not the stamina for _my_ type of excitement, little monkey lizard, but I suppose I can indulge you one kiss," he returned, grinning as he darted in to give his husband a peck on the lips, but found himself stopped by a finger to his own lips.

"What was that? You well know I have _twice_ the stamina of these rebel pups," Baze said, the teasing grin on his face quite plain in his voice.

"Do I know that? Perhaps you had better _prove it,_ husband of mine," Chirrut suggested playfully, eager to lose himself in Baze and forget the twisted pathways of his dreams.

"Playing to my pride, Chirrut Imwe? You should be ashamed," Baze scolded as he pulled Chirrut to him, shifting him so that he lay atop Baze's broad chest. "Are we going to test this scientifically? Do you mean to start bedding these boys?"

"That's up to you," he teased as Baze ran gentle hands up and down his back. "Perhaps I will bring Bodhi and Luke to our bed. They are both such _strong, virile_ young men."

"Heh, those two wouldn't look at anyone but each other and well you know it," Baze pointed out as he nipped at Chirrut's neck. "Might be able to talk Antilles into something. Apparently, he and Zalina are arguing again."

"Only because they worry for each other. No different than Luke and Bodhi, or Jyn and Cassian," he returned, breathing in the scent of his husband's hair as he began to fumble with the larger man's sleep robes; and as he'd suspected, at this mention of worried couples, he could feel something twinge in Baze's soul. Whatever it was, that something had been there for days, and Baze was just as anxious to lose himself in this as Chirrut was. So rather than call Baze on it, he decided to allow it. They could talk later. Right now…right now they just needed to be together, and Chirrut conveyed that desire when he pressed a kiss to his husband's shoulder.

Responding to his actions rather than his words, Baze cradled him close for several moments, peppering the top of his head with kisses while Chirrut worked at his neck and shoulder. His husband wasn't _responding_ to his touch just yet, but really, that was to be expected. After all, neither of them was as young as they used to be. All it meant was that they had to work for what they wanted. So Chirrut began the gloriously slow process by trailing his kisses up to just behind Baze's ear, sucking at the tender spot for several moments before ultimately taking the older man's earlobe into his mouth.

Baze groaned loudly at the sensation, a pleased, indulgent sound that might have embarrassed him in his younger years, but now something that they both reveled in. Chirrut grinned around the mouthful of flesh when he felt Baze begin to react to him.

"There's my Baze," he whispered in his husband's ear, giving the slightest of twitches with his hips to encourage him. "Come, Xino'ai. Give me that wild beast."

Baze's lips twisted into a smile against his skin. "Sure you can handle it, little fool?" he challenged, hands dropping to Chirrut's waist to knead briefly at the skin beneath his sleep robes.

"Heh, who but me could ride this bantha," Chirrut teased, moving down just a little to kiss the juncture between Baze's ear and jaw, enjoying the pleasant tickle of his stubble.

"Too right," Baze returned with a small shake of his head, bucking his hips minutely beneath Chirrut.

The slighter male felt his body begin to harken to his lover with a small sigh of pleasure. He yielded easily enough when Baze's hands traveled back up to his shoulders to push his sleep robes off. Free of the hindrance, he shifted upright to sit astride Baze's hips. He shivered pleasantly when his husband began to run his hands up and down his muscled arms, allowing him to feel the familiar strength in those calloused hands. Once Baze had taken enough time to recommit each fiber of muscle to memory, he shifted his hands down to Chirrut's sides, touches shifting between firm and feather-light as he stroked his way back down to Chirrut's hips.

Chirrut gave a soft gasp as those hands traveled from his hips down to grip at his thighs, fingers pressing firmly into the thick muscle while his thumbs traced delicately along the inner skin, whetting Chirrut's already aroused appetite with the teasing touch. The Guardian felt himself go almost completely stiff within moments, his back arching faintly as his head fell back. Several shuddering groans escaped his mouth before he was able to get another coherent sentence out.

"Well, that- hng… _oh_ …that's just- just not fair. _Mm._ "

"Heh, I know what you want, little wretch," Baze murmured, driving him all the wilder with his continued dance of circling touches – probably the only arena where the man never went directly for the kill.

"We shall see- little monkey lizard," Chirrut returned, allowing himself a more adoring smile as he leaned down closer to Baze, reaching to cup his face between his hands.

He could feel the familiar way his husband's face shifted into a smile beneath his fingertips as they began to move together. No matter how many times he traced his fingers over those familiar features, he always felt a small thrill of love and desire move through him with every touch – the way the corners of his mouth lifted out of their normal grim set, followed by his lips falling open to let go a few puffs of breath in his own brand of silent laughter, the way his cheeks became fuller with the feel of his smile, and how the rate of his breathing increased just slightly. But most of all, Chirrut would say that he loved to feel the deepening lines crinkling outward from Baze's eyes as he smiled. He'd loved the feel of even the tiniest changes over the years and he knew that joy was reflected on his own face because he could feel Baze growing harder beneath him.

"This," Chirrut said softly as the pace of their rocking increased just that little bit. "This is beauty."

"You- you think?" Baze grunted out, returning his hands to grip at Chirrut's hips. Despite the gruffness of his tone, Chirrut could still hear the tiny, quivering note of enchantment in his voice – that amazement and self-denial at being so adored. "Don't think…you might be a bit biased…with the memory of what I _used_ to look like?"

"I see you, Baze," Chirrut said, voice just as soft as he leaned down over him once more to press their foreheads together. "I still see you…Beloved."

With that, he pressed a kiss to Baze's lips, and in terms of physicality, it was a little thing. But in terms of the raw emotion behind it, it was one of the more searing kisses he'd ever given his husband, and he knew Baze could feel it in every point of contact between them. He could feel his love returned in the way Baze held him closer, and when they finally separated to draw breath, Chirrut found himself exhaling an uncommon request against his husband's lips.

"I want you inside me."

With the way they were pressed so closely together, Chirrut could easily feel the way Baze's skin heated and flushed against his. A brief tremor ran through the former Guardian's body before he whispered against Chirrut's lips, "You are- certain?"

For obvious reasons, they didn't often engage in penetration during sex, but when they did, it tended to be special. Baze always insisted on making sure it was what he really wanted and that it wasn't just a request made in the heat of the moment.

"Never more certain," he returned with a string of sloppy kisses. "I see you, Xino'ai. Now I want to _feel_ you. _Take me,_ Baze Malbus," he said before seizing the larger man in a firm kiss.

Baze needed little more encouragement than that. Chirrut felt the absence of one of his hands briefly in conjunction with the sound of him rummaging in the storage unit beside their bed. He carefully tracked the sounds of his husband slicking his fingers with oil so that he could lift himself just enough when Baze was prepared. The former Guardian's first foray was to trace a slicked finger heavily around Chirrut's entrance, announcing his presence without words.

"You're all right? You're ready?" Baze confirmed before progressing any further. Chirrut nodded, leaning in briefly for another kiss.

"I am ready."

Chirrut inhaled a long, steady breath as Baze pressed into him, being careful to keep himself loose and unresisting. After all, they'd done this before and brought on moments of panic and flashback. But he knew he would be all right this time. There was nothing in this room but the two of them. Chirrut sighed in contentment as he drew himself upright again, loving the feeling of that first finger settling inside him.

Baze was still tense beneath him, though, and Chirrut could hear that tension in his voice when he asked him, "All right?"

"Yes," he answered firmly as he raised his hand to Baze's face once more, gently stroking his cheek, letting him feel the certainty contained within his own clever fingers. "I'm fine. Taste me."

Baze breathed his own sigh of relief as he turned his head to the side, pressing several kisses to Chirrut's palm and fingers. The blind Guardian let him linger like that for several moments before fluttering his fingertips against his husband's cheek, reminding him that they had in fact been in the middle of something. Baze chuckled lightly before falling still, just leaning into Chirrut's touch.

"So impatient," he grumbled as he began to work a second finger in, the gruff tone at complete odds with the easing Chirrut felt within his muscles.

"Mm…are you not flattered…that I want you so desperately?" Chirrut teased back, giving an obscene moan as he rocked slowly forward on his husband's fingers.

"Heh. What does an old man have left to flatter?" Baze asked, keeping pace with him.

Chirrut gave a small laugh of his own at this. "You know, I'm not sure if that was meant to insult you…or me."

"Perhaps both," Baze said, allowing Chirrut the time he needed to adjust before continuing. The next few moments were silent as Baze finished opening him up. Chirrut really felt the absence of him when he pulled back to get himself properly prepared. It couldn't have been very long, but that small moment still felt like a small eternity to Chirrut.

 _When will we be together again?_ he found himself wondering. The urgency in his movements was completely genuine when he finally felt Baze pressing against him again.

Baze had done his work so well that Chirrut was able to move directly down on top of him in one easy motion. His groan of pleasure at the feeling of fullness was quickly harmonized with Baze's own eager moan. For several moments, they just held that pose, reveling in the strength and joy of that closeness.

Chirrut wasn't perfectly aware of the moment he began to move. Really, the motion of his body above Baze's was so natural it almost seemed that they'd always been like this – always moving together, always so close, each driving the other toward that ultimate release. The blind Guardian kept an even pace throughout, but when Baze gripped his hips and began to pant, he couldn't ignore the racing of his own heart.

"Chirrut…Chirrut…" his husband groaned over and over again, keeping the same even pace, though his breathing had begun to speed up.

"Oh, love…my love," he called back, voice hardly more than a whimper. He was close now…so close. They were the last coherent words he could manage. Everything else was noise and breath and _feeling_ as he was pushed toward that moment of perfect union.

When he was finally driven over the edge into bliss, his body stiffened above Baze's, his release spilling from him in a single burst. He didn't cry out at the moment of climax. He never did. The moment instead punctuated by a sharp intake of breath as he followed the feeling of pleasure through every nerve in his body.

"Keep- keep going. Keep going," he barely managed to make himself whimper through the inundation of feeling, only just aware that Baze's pace had slowed, even though he hadn't come yet.

He felt Baze hesitate just a fraction of a moment before picking up his pace again, reaching more of a fever pitch as he moved against Chirrut. He couldn't track the time with any accuracy in his blissed out state, but he was verging on the pain of overstimulation by the time his husband finally released inside of him.

Baze's release was encompassed by a single harsh grunt. When he was finally still, Chirrut collapsed on top of him, feeling each tremor as it passed through his body. For a long while after, they just lay together on the bed, completely tangled up in each other and neither with much interest in moving. Chirrut was the one to finally lift his head from where it rested on Baze's chest and press a kiss to the damp skin.

"It seems I was wrong. Apparently you _do_ have the stamina after all."

"Well, good to know I meet your ridiculous standards. I'm not-"

"Shh," Chirrut shushed him suddenly as he sat up, cocking his head as he tuned into a small ripple in the Force. Then he began to hastily pull his robes back on, advising, "Had best get dressed. There's a storm heading our way."

Taking the extra meaning in the cue, Baze clumsily struggled back into his robes. None too soon, either, because in the next moment, the sound of the security release on their door came through to them quite plainly. The door slid open soon after to admit Rini – Jyn and Cassian's not-quite-four-year-old daughter. Chirrut immediately heard the sounds of their not-quite-grandchild darting to hide behind a collection of storage units.

"How are a pair of old eopies supposed to get any sleep around here?" Baze grumbled, pretending to only just be waking up. "With little space slugs crawling all over the place."

"Is that our little locksmith? What could she be doing here?" Chirrut asked sleepily, as if he didn't already know.

"Shhhh!" the loud shush came from the other side of the room. But no sooner had Rini offered up her warning than the door slid open once more, admitting the near identical footsteps of her twin brother, Gale.

"Where's Rini?" the boy demanded in an excited huff.

"Now you know we cannot take sides, little one," Chirrut admonished as he sat up. "You will have to find your sister on your own."

Gale growled, but ultimately began the search without further complaint. Chirrut heard him start to dig through the units containing Baze's gear, and just above that, he caught the whisper-light sound of Rini attempting to sneak out of the room behind her sibling's back. But her escape was subsequently blocked by the latest arrival at the door.

"Erina Erso," Bodhi scolded as the little girl smacked into him. She squealed in delighted protest when he wrangled her into his arms. "Did you slice their lock again?"

"Uncle Chirrut doesn't mind," Rini sang.

"Uncle Baze might," the former Guardian put in as he climbed out of bed, leaving Chirrut to pull their blankets around himself. "Someday they might see something they shouldn't."

Chirrut chuckled at the mild blush he could just imagine painting Bodhi's cheeks as he realized what they must have interrupted. But before Bodhi could offer any sort of apology, Gale jumped back into the conversation.

"Found you!" he crowed triumphantly.

"It doesn't count," Rini snipped back. "Uncle Bodhi got me. Not you. Doesn't count."

"Does too!"

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

" _Does not!_ "

"Children, it rather seems to me that _no one_ wins this round," Chirrut pointed out. "After all, Gale failed to find and Rini failed to hide. Nobody wins."

"No! No ties!" the twins shouted together, the one thing they agreed on. They loved each other, but they were both fiercely competitive.

"Guess the next round begins then," Baze said as he ruffled through the storage unit where their clothes were kept. "Why don't you find out who gets to the mess hall first this time."

Both twins immediately shouted with glee and took off, Rini rocketing from Bodhi's arms and Gale near barreling him over in his haste to get out of the room.

"Don't run into anyone!" Bodhi shouted after them. "If you knock anything over, this race doesn't count!"

Chirrut chuckled as he shifted beneath the sheets, body still tender from their earlier activities. "The day the Erso twins do not crash into something is likely the day the entire galaxy collapses in on itself."

"Granted," Bodhi said as he shook himself off. "I am- sorry if they interrupted."

"We were finished anyway," Chirrut reassured him. "I believe they have come closer to barging in on you and Luke or their own parents."

"True enough. Han had…joked about having Kaytoo give them the talk," the pilot said, and the way his voice dropped off told the Guardian how worried he was for their friends – for Cassian and Jyn, Luke and Leia, Lando, Chewie, and the droids, currently taking on the criminal elements of Tatooine.

"I imagine he will yet have the opportunity. Are you prepared for your own mission?" Chirrut asked, feeling that same unpleasant _something_ twinge in his husband's soul at his words.

"That was actually what I was coming to speak to you about before the twins got into that last round. Baze, we'll be needing to take a trip to the barber before we launch. Wedge is ready to go."

"Ah," Chirrut said when Baze didn't respond, the disparate pieces beginning to form into a coherent whole when his husband's mind flitted quickly from panic to anger to acceptance all in the space of a moment.

"Oh, you- you didn't know?" Bodhi asked, clearly surprised.

"I cannot say as I did. I was under the impression Baze and I would be minding the twins together during your assignment, but it seems someone thought it was a good idea to leave Jyn's precocious offspring in the hands of a blind man."

Baze snorted. "As if those two _didn't_ respect the air you breathe."

"Well…I suppose I'll see you down there, then," Bodhi said, the only sound to indicate his departure the sound of the door sliding shut. The two men were silent for several long moments after he'd gone.

"You volunteered to help Bodhi infiltrate the Imperial Academy," Chirrut finally spoke up. "To steal the shuttle."

"I did," Baze responded as he came to stand before Chirrut, laying his robes next to him on the bed.

"And what would prompt such a decision?" Chirrut asked, even though he already knew. "Infiltration is not exactly high on your list of skills, husband of mine. You are not a subtle man."

"I go because…I have finally tracked Niner," Baze answered as he laid his hands on Chirrut's shoulders. "I know where he's going to be, and I'm going to kill him."

"And it will not- jeopardize Bodhi's mission in any way?" Chirrut pressed as he reached a hand up to stroke the back of Baze's.

"Of course not."

"Were you not going to tell me? Had you just thought to sneak off? Just now…was that supposed to be goodbye?"

"Don't be ridiculous. _This_ is goodbye," the former Guardian said as he raised his hands to Chirrut's face and drew him into a deep kiss, lingering over the intimate contact for several moments before breaking off, though he did still keep their foreheads pressed together. "Call it a promise. We will continue when I return."

"I would like to tell you not to go, but I know all I can really tell you is to be careful," Chirrut said, running tender, searching fingers all along his Beloved's face, taking in every detail he possibly could. "Niner…he will say things. He will say whatever he must to make you doubt your own mind, but you must not listen."

"I know. I have never forgotten. I could never," he said quietly, taking that moment to hold Chirrut even closer as they both shuddered. "But I will face him alone this time. There is nothing he can say of me I have not already thought of myself in my own heart."

"There may yet be, Husband. I just fear he will understand what it was you _did_ protect that night better than you ever have. If you would only _see_ that, I _know_ you would triumph over him," Chirrut said, cleaving to Baze with everything he was, spinning the moment out as he hadn't since before Scarif.

"I don't want jokes about seeing from _you._ I will triumph one way or the other. He will not have us. I'll come back to you," he promised, as he did every time he left. The only thing that was different this time was Chirrut's response.

"I know you will," he said, not regretting the echo of that night even as he felt Baze flinch against him. If he could help him to remember, even a little bit, then he would have done his part to help end this nightmare.

XxX

The journey to Monstross was made mostly in silence. It wasn't until Wedge had left the cockpit to prepare for the drop from hyper space that Bodhi began to properly prod Baze for information.

"So why had you taken so long to tell him you volunteered?" the younger man asked him.

"He already knew. Even if he didn't want to admit what it was that he knew. He _always_ knows…even if he doesn't strictly know what it _is_ he knows," was Baze's response, and as much as he put on a front of annoyance over it, it was more of a relief than anything else, not having to explain himself to Chirrut.

"But there was- still something you weren't wanting to talk with him about," Bodhi pressed, and Baze would have to admit that the pilot was much more intuitive than he tended to give him credit for.

"There is something I must take care of at Skystrike…something I must finish," Baze explained. "It will not put the mission at risk; it's just…something I have to do."

"What kind of something?" Bodhi asked, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

"On the night the temple fell…I made a vow," the assassin began slowly, looking out the forward viewport at the whiteness of hyperspace. "I swore to hunt down every man who lay hands on Chirrut that night and kill them all. I have kept that vow. Those troopers are all dead now…all but one…a man we knew only as Niner. I've traced him to this academy."

"So it ends tonight," Bodhi said quietly as he turned away from Baze, placing his focus a little more on starting the landing cycle. "Then I suppose it makes a little more sense, your volunteering. I would've expected you to go for something a little more action heavy."

"Still may do, depending on how much of me is left after this mission. Chirrut hasn't talked me into retirement just yet," Baze huffed as he reflexively checked his gear, a great deal reduced from his normal store in order to sell his Imperial disguise. The flight suit made his skin crawl just from the thought of it, but he knew it was necessary just the same. More than allowing him to finally put his own demons to bed, this mission would also be helping to strike a serious blow against the Empire. As he glanced at his clean-shaven, Imperial-looking visage in the viewport, he found himself thinking that Chirrut would be very put out with the fact that he'd had to lop off his braids yet again, but he just _had_ to think that he would have the opportunity to grow them back out at least one more time. Maybe they really might have a little peace in their old age.

"Heh, no. The pair of you will be fighting the Empire when you're a hundred. The Guardians will keep their watch long after the rest of us have gone," Bodhi said as he looked down at his own hands, almost as if he were somehow just observing himself going through his normal checks. "You have been together how long now? Thirty years?"

"That is the length of our marriage bond, yes," Baze supplied with a minute twitch of his lips. "We have been lovers even longer, and known each other longer still. We've been together since we were children."

Bodhi sighed wistfully at this. "What is that like? To stand at the side of your Xino'ai all your life?"

"Couldn't really tell you. We all feel things differently," he explained gruffly. "For me, it has been knowing where I belong, even when the way has been at its darkest. I can't tell you how _you_ might feel; but perhaps you ask because Skywalker was asking Chirrut about the Marks?" Baze suggested, raising an eyebrow at the mild blush that painted the former Imperial's face. He knew what the kid was really getting at.

"Perhaps," Bodhi returned with a shrug, trying to make the motion seem non-committal and failing miserably. "We have- talked about it. I think Luke likes the idea of using a ceremony from Jedha. The Tatooine settlers have traditions of their own, but he doesn't want to use them."

"And his Jedi master has no problem with the pair of you?" he asked, his opinion of the Jedi way quite plain in his tone.

Bodhi's expression cooled at this. "If he does, Luke's never made mention of it. I don't really know what the Jedi code has to say about this sort of thing. I just know what's in my own heart. All those years ago, before Scarif…I remember Chirrut saying I would understand the bond someday. I think I do. I think I understood it the first time Luke and I went flying together."

"And what did that feel like?" Baze prompted.

"Right," the pilot answered after several long moments of silence. "It was different from when I left Eadu…or from Scarif…but for the first time in my life, everything just felt _right._ Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I don't know if I- _always_ feel that way. We've had our arguments. I didn't much like his plan to take on the most reviled crime lord in the Outer Rim."

"Can't imagine he was a fan of _this_ plan, either," Baze couldn't quite help noting.

"Mm, no, but we all do what we have to," Bodhi responded quietly. After that, the two men fell into silence, the sounds of their junker of a freighter coming out of hyper space taking over for their conversation. It wasn't until they were descending through the yellowed atmosphere of Monstross that Bodhi spoke again.

"Baze…I know you still- prefer not to think of yourself as a Guardian, but…well…since there aren't any Disciples left alive to perform the rituals, Luke and I were wondering if you and Chirrut might perform the Marking ceremony for us," the pilot rushed the words out almost on top of each other in his hurry to get them out in the open.

Baze shook his head, covering his small chuckle up with a sigh. "Didn't leave me much time to decide one way or the other," he pointed out.

"It isn't so much about the Guardian thing; it's more that- you get what this is we're asking of you. You _know_ how much it means," Bodhi tried to explain quickly, clearly in fear of rejection. Baze let out more of a laugh at how flustered the younger man was getting.

"You don't have to worry about me, Rook. I'll do my part. We'll just need to make sure we get you back to Skywalker in one piece."

"That part will happen pretty definitely," Bodhi said as he fixed his gaze brazenly ahead, his worries plainly cast aside. "You'll just have to be sure not to do anything foolish either."

"How can I? Left all my foolish back with _Home One_ ," Baze lied. Much as he berated his husband for doing foolish things, he was only too aware that his own common sense was tightly bound up in the blind Guardian. He knew this was not a confrontation Chirrut would ever be up to, but without his cooler head, could Baze himself hope to fair much better?

No. He couldn't waste his time thinking like that. If he did, then Niner had already won. Right now he needed the anger he'd been able to summon up for his other kills – the hate. He needed to forget the horror of that night and remember only the _rage._ Niner had done something unforgivable.

He would pay.

XxX

Infiltrating Skystrike Academy wasn't all that difficult. Slipping into the compound as contracted supply runners was a simple enough matter. Really, it took Baze right back to the mercenary days.

Splitting off from Bodhi and Wedge also went off without a hitch, leaving him free to set up the detonators on their ship to serve as a little distraction. The explosion would keep the Imperials occupied long enough to allow them to slip away with their prize while also serving to erase all other traces of their presence. And while the two former Imperials made their way toward the mission objective, Baze was free to pursue his final target.

In his view, it was almost too easy to locate Niner. The man was standing alone on a simulation deck, no longer in stormtrooper gear, but in an officer's uniform. Baze had no trouble recognizing him, though. He would know this monster anywhere, from any angle. He could never forget. And when he leveled his blaster to the back of the man's head, it seemed _he_ couldn't forget either.

"Did you come here to kill me?"

"You cannot say you didn't know this was coming," he said, pressing the muzzle of his weapon even more harshly against Niner's head.

"Oh, the thought had certainly crossed my mind. Especially after I saw _your_ picture among the Wanted notices… _Baze Malbus,_ " Niner said, still speaking in that same cruelly assured tone from so many years ago as he turned to face Baze. No less than the assassin had expected, he wasn't even a little bit phased by the blaster pressed against his forehead. He just sneered at Baze, piercing amber eyes undimmed by time. And for a moment, all Baze could see was the look in them from that night…as he told him what he was going to _do_ to Chirrut.

"So you've got the proper name now, have you?" he noted, priming the blaster in an effort to shake off his memories.

"Mm, yes. Yours…and _his._ Chirrut Imwe. How's he holding up?" Niner asked, moving a fraction of an inch forward, into the pressure of the blaster.

"Don't speak his name," Baze growled, fighting the urge to step back. "You have no right." He should shoot him. Why wasn't he shooting him?

"Don't I? _You_ certainly lost the right when you couldn't stop me from _taking_ what I wanted, and if not you, who else but _me_ has the right?"

"That's not going to work. There's nothing you can say about me I haven't already thought about myself. You _can't hurt me,_ " he snarled, even as he went on not shooting his target.

"You know…somehow I don't believe you," the Imperial said as he continued to press forward, forcing Baze back. "I suppose I should thank you, _temple rat_. My career was going nowhere on Scarif. It was a dead end – a lazy old fool's paradise. But one does tend to be shuffled off when the higher-ups _fear_ you. Things changed for me after that battle, though. Those of us who managed to escape attained heroic status among our peers, just as I'm sure you did among the Rebel scum. I'm a _legend_ to these academy blowhards, and with the Emperor's latest project, I'm in line for an even bigger promotion…and that's all thanks to your attack on Scarif. How does that feel, Baze? To know you _failed_ that completely?" Niner asked as he drove the former Guardian to the end of the catwalk they stood on, pressing him up against the railing with nothing more than his own forward momentum.

"If I am the one who failed…how is it that _you_ are the one with a blaster to your head?" Baze asked, barely managing to keep his tone even.

"So why don't you _shoot me?_ " Niner demanded harshly, the sneer on his face growing slightly unhinged as he forced his way even further into Baze's space. "You can't do it, can you. Because you're _afraid_ – afraid that once I'm dead, you'll be no better than you were before. That this vow you've striven for all these years will change _nothing,_ and that at the end of all this, you will _both_ still be nothing but broken children, crying out in the dark. While I'm still alive, you have hope that my destruction will mean something, and that everything that came before it wasn't _meaningless_. You won't kill me, Baze Malbus. You _can't!_ " Niner hissed just before the shriek of a blaster electrified the air.

At first, Baze didn't know what had happened. He wasn't aware of firing his weapon and Niner was still standing. It wasn't until Baze noticed the chilling numbness that always followed the searing agony of a blaster bolt in his chest that he began to realize…

… _he_ was the one who'd been shot.

He caught sight of the blaster Niner had managed to slip out as his bulk collapsed against the railing. He'd shot him just above the heart, and he could tell from the feel of it that it wouldn't be an immediately fatal shot. The blaster was on a low setting, probably so his enemy could mock him in his last moments.

"I told you, Baze," Niner started tauntingly as he moved to his knees before the former Guardian, reaching forward to rip away the singed fabric of the flight suit to reveal that his shot had burned away half of Baze's Mark. "Back on Jedha, I _told_ you it was all your fault. It still is. There's nothing you can do to change any of it. It would've been better if you'd died back then, wouldn't it."

"Baze, we're in position," Bodhi's voice suddenly sounded in his earpiece. "We could really use that distraction right about now."

"You know, I'd actually forgotten about the two of you until I saw those Wanted transmissions," Niner hissed in his other ear. "Destroying your lives meant that little to me, and your _death_ will be just as little. You will die alone and unmourned, and your Xino'ai will _burn_ with the Rebellion. You've given up your own life and changed _nothing_. That is the fate of _all_ rebellions."

"Baze! Where are you?"

Baze could do nothing but despair as Niner raised his blaster to obliterate the rest of the Mark. Had he really come this far…only to fail like _this?_ Bodhi's mission would fail, the Alliance's plan to destroy the new Death Star would fail, and the Empire would burn the Rebellion to ashes…just as it had burned Jedha. His family would be destroyed because of his failure. There was no more complete failure than this – than ensuring that the galaxy fell under the sway of the Empire for all of time…and yet…all he could seem to think about was the way Chirrut had clung so desperately to him in the pools that night, their life shattered in innumerable pieces all around them.

 _"Baze…_ _ **oh, Baze.**_ _"_

 _I failed you._

"Goodbye, Baze."

 _Chirrut…I'm so sorry. Please forgive me._

XxX

Chirrut felt his husband's lowest moment through the Force. His attention pulled completely away from the latest antics of the Erso twins, he turned toward the despair that called out to him, the unimaginable distance between them less than nothing within the Force.

"Baze?" he called out softly, desperate to soothe his Beloved's suffering.

In his mind he could see Baze lying helpless, half of his Mark burned away and his spirit broken.

 _I'm sorry…forgive me…forgive me…I couldn't defeat him. He_ _ **has**_ _destroyed us. I'm sorry._

"You old fool," he began, shaking his head as a few tears escaped his useless eyes. "You still don't get it."

 _He_ _ **cannot**_ _destroy what we really are._ _ **They**_ _cannot._ _ **Nothing**_ _can. The Mark is only a mark._

 _But…he hurt you. He hurt_ _ **us.**_

 _That's true, but he cannot harm the love in my heart, nor in yours. He_ _ **cannot**_ _break it. It doesn't_ _ **matter**_ _how much he hurt us, because I still love you, and you still love me. That is why I was prepared to die on Scarif…because not even_ _ **death**_ _can take this from us._

Knowing of no other way to convey the knowledge to his husband, he gave the other man his memories of the night the temple fell – not of what occurred in the pools, but from before the last battle…when they'd stood alone in the training room and Baze had laid himself bare before Chirrut's doubt.

 ** _This_** _was what you protected that night…my faith…my heart…my_ _ **love**_ _. What they did to my body doesn't matter, because everything that_ _ **truly**_ _matters was kept safe._ _ **You**_ _did that._

 _ **I love you. I trust you. My faith is with you. Now, more than ever, I am with you, Baze.**_

XxX

The moment Baze Malbus comprehended all of that, truly, he was on his feet, fist buried in the former stormtrooper's face as he sent him flying back across the catwalk. The surprise blow disarmed Niner of his blaster and, for once, _he_ was the one wearing a look of shock as Baze stared down at him.

"Heh, so…so you still think you can do it?" the Imperial fired back, attempting to regain control of the situation.

"No. I _know_ I can," he returned as he detonated the explosives aboard their transport. The tremors from the blast were barely noticeable from this level, but it didn't take long for the emergency system to blare to life, alarms sounding all throughout the complex. Neither man paid the commotion any mind, though. Their focus was strictly for the enemy.

"So why don't you?" Niner demanded with an unsettling grin, head falling grotesquely to the side as he stared up at Baze. "Why don't you just _end it?_ "

"It used to keep me awake at night…wondering what sort of person could do the things you've done and _smile_ the way you did. But now I see you, I think I understand. There's just nothing inside you. The only power you have is the power _I_ give you, and I choose to give you none. You have nothing," he said firmly, conviction solid despite the pain in his body.

"Nothing?" Niner repeated derisively, anger apparent in his maddened eyes as he spat back, "Then what do _you_ have?"

"The only thing _worth_ having," Baze returned, sighing as he shook his head. "The truth is you were right before. I _can't_ kill you. I can't kill you because you're already dead," he finished as he began to turn away.

"So why come here at all?!" Niner demanded hysterically, but then, just for a moment, a light of understanding shone through that shroud of madness. "Oh. You have another purpose here, don't you. Perhaps your Rebellion is planning another Scarif. Another chance for me to raise myself in the eyes of the Emperor?" he suggested.

Baze turned back to look at his long time enemy out of the corner of his eye. He no longer _needed_ to kill Niner. His heart no longer bayed for the beast's blood as it had for so many years. As far as he and Chirrut were concerned, it didn't matter if this man lived or died. But it _did_ matter to the Alliance. If Niner were left alive to take what he knew to the Empire, to report Rebel involvement in this incident, they would quickly lose the only advantage they had in this confrontation. In this, there was no other choice.

So, shaking his head one last time, Baze raised his blaster and shot Niner in the face, turning away before his body had even hit the catwalk. It wasn't until he was climbing down from the sim platform that he heard Bodhi's voice in his ear again.

"Don't know what took you so long, old man, but the fireworks were spectacular. If you wouldn't mind getting your arse to the docking bay, we've got a schedule to keep."

"About that," Baze started as he struggled to make his way through the levels of the complex, adrenaline fast wearing off, "looks like you might need to go without me."

For a moment, the other end of the comm was silent. When Bodhi finally responded, it was as if he'd suddenly snapped awake from some nightmare. "What? No! No _way!_ I'm not leaving you here. Chirrut would kill me."

"Bodhi…I'm hit," he tried to explain. "I won't be able to get to you before they put the complex on lockdown. If you don't get out of here, this whole thing was for nothing. Go. Just go."

"But…you've still got something to do. You and Chirrut are going to perform our ceremony," the pilot argued.

"Chirrut can do it alone. I think- you'll find him a much better officiant anyway," Baze said, barely managing to stumble along.

"No! What- what's the point…if the whole family's not there? No."

"Why is it no one ever listens when I tell them to go? I'll have no one else's foolishness on my head before I die. If you don't get the kriff out of here-"

"Baze," Wedge's voice suddenly cut into the conversation, "is it possible for you to get to an outer platform?"

"Don't know. Might be," Baze grunted.

"What level are you on?"

"Nine. Ten? Not sure," he mumbled, vision beginning to tunnel.

"Then get out there. Stay awake. We'll come to you," Wedge snapped off.

Baze couldn't quite manage to acknowledge the directive. All of his focus was now on getting to the outside. He ignored everything else in favor of pushing his body forward just those few more steps. Always just a few more…

He almost didn't notice when he passed into the open air of one of the outer platforms. He didn't really become aware until he walked directly into the railing that separated him from a drop thousands of feet through the atmosphere to the planet below. Neither did he really see the Imperial shuttle pull up to him. All he heard was the sound of its engine intakes and Bodhi's voice shouting to him through the frigid, high-speed winds.

"Baze, _come on!_ "

So he was…what? Supposed to jump? He couldn't even keep his fading vision focused enough to see his own hands before him, much less make a jump across an endless chasm. How…?

"There's no time! _Come on!_ "

"I…can't…"

 _You can,_ a gently mocking voice at the back of his mind reassured him. _You don't need to_ _ **see**_ _, little monkey-lizard. You just need to come home to me._

"Shut up," he muttered, despite knowing all too well how right that voice was. Wasting no more time on doubt, he stumbled back several steps before bolting forward and casting himself over the edge, guided only by the one thing he still believed in.

He didn't remain conscious long enough to see where that leap of faith led him. Even as the blackness embraced him, he knew he was already home.

XxX

 _"I'll come back to you."_

 _"I know you will."_

XxX

When Baze awoke, it was to the familiar feel of Chirrut's hand on his face. As he slowly blinked his eyes open, he drew his own hand up to cover Chirrut's, shifting it slightly so he could press a kiss to his husband's palm.

"Finally," Chirrut whispered, a long-held knot of pain and worry easing its way out of his face before his tone shifted back to its typical joking notes. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd need to resort to a bucket of cold water to get your lazy bones out of bed."

"None of your whinging, old nerf herder. You should know better than to put me off so early in the morning," he scolded mildly, threading his fingers together with Chirrut's so he could dart his tongue out to run it along his fingertips. Chirrut gave a pleased sigh before shaking his head.

"Best be careful of that naughty talk, Husband. We're not alone at the moment."

Expanding his awareness beyond Chirrut, Baze found himself in one of the wards aboard the medical frigate. His husband was at his bedside, but beyond that, the small room was near filled to capacity. Bodhi was standing at the foot of the medical cot, smiling at him in relief. Jyn stood just half a foot behind him with a similar relieved smile. Cassian was positioned against the far wall with Gale clinging to his leg and Rini slung over his shoulder, his own smile a little less obvious, but still there. And in response to the unasked question of whether or not their mission had been successful, against the wall opposite him stood Han and Leia, joined at the hip and grinning at him. Beside them were Chewie and Lando, the Wookiee offering up one of his pleased growls while Lando smiled in his own understated way. Last of all, in the doorway stood Threepio and Kaytoo. Really, there were only two faces missing from the little family.

"Where're Antilles and Skywalker? Don't tell me we got you back in one piece for no reason," Baze said in a grouchy voice as he offered Bodhi a 'look', but the pilot was nothing but smiles.

"Luke's completing his Jedi training. He'll be back before too long."

"And I'll go let Wedge know you pulled through," Lando said, smile widening into his trademark grin as he pushed himself away from the wall. "For a bit there, he was damn certain he'd killed you."

"Careful. If the X-wing's rockin', I wouldn't go knockin'," Han warned his friend with a shake of his head and a sideways smirk.

Baze gave a chuckle of his own as Lando headed out. "I take it Zalina decided she wasn't angry anymore?"

Bodhi shrugged. "Apparently we did something heroic, catching you in mid-air. At least _one_ of us got rewarded."

Baze raised an eyebrow at the young man. "Well…we _would_ reward you, but somehow I can't see that meaning the same coming from Chirrut or I."

Bodhi laughed at that, a mild blush spreading across his cheeks. "No. No, it wouldn't. I'll just have to wait patiently for my own reward."

"We were successful then?"

"Completely. We made a clean getaway and the shuttle _Tydirium_ is safely docked with _Home One._ Now we're just waiting on the moment."

"So you'd better get your ass better fast, old man. I'm gonna need you on this one," Han said as he and Leia approached the cot. Leia leaned down over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead, the only person aside from Jyn or Chirrut who could get away with it.

"Thank you for what you did. Your volunteering for the mission gave us the time we needed on Tatooine. I don't know if I can- ever repay you for it," she told him softly.

"No need," he returned just as quietly. "Just don't waste it."

"Never," she whispered back before she and Han moved to leave. Leia gave Cassian and the twins a hug while Han briefly gripped Jyn's shoulder. As the pair headed out, Chewie gave another pleased trill and several nods. Baze acknowledged the Wookiee with a nod of his own before he followed after the princess and the general.

With more than half their audience dissipated, Baze reached his free hand up to Chirrut's neck, pulling him down into a proper kiss.

"They're kissing! They're kissing!" Rini shrieked wildly as she climbed around on her father's shoulders like a climbing frame. Cassian just stood patiently all the while, that same faint smile still playing about the corners of his mouth.

"I'd say they've earned the right to. One of them had to deal with the pair of _you,_ after all," Jyn teased her precious babies. Much as she pretended to complain about them, she could hardly stand to be away from them for very long. Though Cassian had argued for it, she couldn't even stand the notion of them being raised away from the Rebellion like most of the other Rebel children – away from _her_. She had no intention of letting her children out of her sight.

Chirrut sighed dramatically as he pulled back from Baze. "Such horrid little rancors they are. Let the Empire deal with _them_ sometime. Then we shall see who emerges victorious." He probably would have continued on from there, except that was the moment he tilted his head to the side as if he'd caught the sound of something distant, letting Baze know he'd felt something in the Force. When he finally rejoined them in the present moment, he announced, "It seems Luke has just docked with _Home One._ "

Bodhi started at this. "Already?" Chirrut's nod was enough clarification for the pilot to make his way worriedly out of the ward.

"Uncle Luke! Uncle Luke!" the twins chanted together. Gale broke off to ask, "Papa? Can we go play with Artoo?"

"Only if Uncle Luke says it's all right," Cassian said, offering them an apologetic smile as he herded his children from the room. Kaytoo swiveled around on his astromech treads to follow after them.

"Cassian, I don't understand why your progeny prefer that little blue firesnap to me. Is one astromech really all that different from another?" the droid's complaining voice drifted to them from down the hall. Threepio gave several unsettled jerks at the other droid's frank language.

"It _is_ wonderful to see you back to capacity, Master Baze, but if you will excuse me, I had best see to Master Luke and Artoo," the protocol droid said with a nod before following after the small group. Jyn laughed, smiling fondly after them before moving around the cot and leaning down to hug Baze.

"I should supervise. Looks like Kay's in a mood. It's good to have you back, Baze," she said, dropping a kiss of her own on his forehead before pulling back from him.

"Good to _be_ back, little sister."

"I'll leave you two alone, then. Get better soon," she advised on the way out. "It's like Han said. We need you."

"Right," Baze said, noting Chirrut's chuckle as the door slid closed behind the young woman. "You know, someday you're going to tell me why it's so funny that they have twins."

"Mm, someday, but not today," his husband responded with a lopsided grin. "Somehow I think you might smack me when I do."

"I might smack you _now_ ," Baze put in wryly. "You couldn't have told me what you meant a little sooner? You and Maz just had to spin riddles around me for years. This whole thing could've been a lot simpler."

"Is it my fault you are slow in the head, old bantha? Am I to explain _everything_ to you? I _had_ hoped you would come to understand it on your own, but there was only so much I could do when you came to the end of your rope like that. Besides, if you had known beforehand, you wouldn't have gone, and you wouldn't have been where so many needed you to be at the proper moment. All is as the Force wills it," the blind Guardian said serenely.

"Of course," Baze said, sighing fondly as he rolled his eyes.

"You are…all right?" Chirrut's voice came to him with just a touch of vulnerable uncertainty. When Baze looked to him once again, he could see hints of the worry lines that must have marred his lover's face ever since he'd flown off to Montross. When he didn't respond right away, Chirrut moved his hand to rest against the bacta patches that covered the left side of his chest, that concealed his half-burned Mark.

"Yes," he answered as he lifted Chirrut's hand away from the injury, tangling their fingers together once more. "You were right before. For all their meaning, they are only lines of ink. They do not contain my love for you anymore than mere words do. That is within me…and within you…as it always shall be. I know that now…my Xino'ai," he said softly as he sat up properly on the cot, reaching to draw Chirrut into another kiss.

For several long moments, they just stayed like that, lost in each other, sharing in everything they were together. When they separated for a moment of breath, they kept their foreheads pressed together, silently breathing each other in. Baze was the one to break that silence with a few simple words.

"Let nothing living doubt-"

"-how I love you," Chirrut finished before pressing into another kiss.

The galaxy was crumbling and reforming around them, as it always was, within or without the Force. To whatever end came the war, the galaxy, their very reality, it did not matter. Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe could not be destroyed.

The two of them were eternal.

XxX

(A/N) Well, snap. That was seriously a whole helluva lot longer than I'd thought it was going to be. I think I just turned out a novel without meaning to. I've definitely set up my own little world in here, and there are plenty more stories I could see my way to telling in this 'verse, but for the moment, I'd say this particular story is solidly finished, so I surely hope you enjoyed it. :D


End file.
